How is international news actually gathered?
Through a shrinking network of correspondents, a much larger network of local journalists, and increasingly through open-source verification — and the economics have changed the mix substantially.
The staff foreign correspondent. A journalist employed by an outlet and based abroad, covering a country or region. Historically the backbone of international reporting, and now far rarer — maintaining a bureau is extremely expensive, and most outlets have closed the majority of theirs.
The stringer. A freelance journalist based locally, paid per piece or on a retainer, filing for one or several outlets. Stringers do a very large share of international reporting, and they are frequently local nationals with language skills, contacts and contextual knowledge that a parachuting correspondent lacks.
Fixers are the least visible and most important role. A fixer arranges access, translates, identifies sources, advises on safety and navigates local conditions. Much celebrated foreign reporting depends on a fixer whose name does not appear on it, and this has drawn increasing criticism — fixers take substantial personal risk, remain after the correspondent leaves, and have historically received little credit or protection.
Wire agencies — Reuters, AP, AFP — supply the base layer of international coverage to almost everyone.
Parachute journalism is the term for correspondents flown in for a major event. It brings resources and profile and is criticised for producing coverage lacking context, since the reporter may have arrived days earlier.
What has changed:
Bureau closures mean fewer regions have any resident reporting at all, and some receive coverage only during crises.
Open-source investigation has grown substantially — verifying satellite imagery, geolocating footage, analysing flight and shipping data. Organisations working this way can establish facts about places no reporter can reach.
Local journalists bear the risk. The overwhelming majority of journalists killed are local reporters covering their own countries, not foreign correspondents — a fact that receives far less attention than it warrants.
Access journalism constrains what can be reported where visas depend on coverage.