The News From Southeast Asia 9789814379618

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The News From Southeast Asia

The Imtttute of Southeast As1an Stud1es was estabhshed as an autonomous organtzatwn m May 1968 It 1s a regwnal research centre for scholar and other spec1ahsts concerned w1th modern Southeast As1a The Institute's research mterest 1s focused on the many-faceted problems of development and modermzatton, and poht1cal and soc1al change m Southeast As1a. The Institute 1s governed by a twenty-four member Board of Trustees on wh1ch are represented the Umvers1ty of Smgapore and Nanyang Umvers1ty, appomtees from the government, as well as representatives from a broad range of professwnal and c1v1c orgamzattons and groups. A ten-man Executive Committee oversees day-to-day operattons, 1t IS chatred by the Dtrector, the Instttute's ch1ef academ1c and admm1strat1ve officer The responstbtllty for facts and opmwns expressed m thts publtcatwn rests exclustvely wtth the author and hts mterpretatwns do not necessanly reflect the vtews or the poltcy of the Institute or tts supporters.

THE NEWS FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA The Sociology of Newsmaking

by

Rodney Tiffen

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore

Pubhshed m 1978 by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Cluny Road Smgapore

© Institute of Southeast Astan Studies

PREFACE The questton of 'the news' from Thtrd World countnes, and Western press coverage of tt m particular, has of late become a matter of sharp debate, at ttmes even to the pomt of accusatiOn and counteraccusatiOn of 'dtstortton' and 'dtscnmmatwn' Southeast Asta has not been an exceptton to thts general trend In thts light, Dr. Rodney Ttffen's analysts of "how soctal processes affect the ptcture of Southeast Asia conveyed through news to the Australian public" IS all the more welcome and timely, and It should be of considerable mterest to not only those concerned wtth Australian/Southeast Astan relatwns but also the wtder scholarly communtty The News from Southeast Asta forms part of Dr Ttffen's ongomg research mterest m Australian attitudes to Asta and news coverage of Asta. Specifically, It grew out of a proJect on "The Flow of News from Southeast Asta to Australia" based at the Institute Thts proJect was made posstble through the award of a fellowship to Dr Ttffen under the Institute's Australian/Southeast Astan Relatwns Programme In addttton to enablmg Dr. Tiffen to gather data from other sources, thts fellowshtp enabled htm to travel around Southeast Asta and mtervtew foretgn correspondents workmg m the regton The Fellowship m Australian/Southeast Astan Relations ts funded through an annual grant from the Australian Federal Government, and the Institute Is extremely grateful to the Australian Federal Government for thts support Furthermore, It ts our hope that the Fellowship in Australian/Southeast Astan Relations wtll become a regular feature of the Institute's research and fellowship programmes. In thankmg the Australian Federal Government and wtshmg Dr Ttffen and hts work all the best, It ts clearly understood that responsibility for facts and opmwns expressed m the volume that follows

rests exclusively w1th Dr T1ffen and h1s mterpretattons do not necessanly reflect the v1ews or pohcy of the Institute or 1ts supporters KERNIAL S SANDHU D1rector Institute of Southeast As1an Stud1es 28 October 1978

CONTENTS Acknowledgements and hst oj mterVtewees Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

Chapter Two

NEWS CHANNELS News Agencies Newspaper Correspondents Television and Radio News Magazmes

Chapter Three

SOUTHEAST ASIA AS A NEWSBEAT Routes to Southeast Asia Problems and Satisfactions Tools and Routmes Newsbeat Structure

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18 18 26 33 36 41 42 SO

55 59

Chapter Four

NEWS ORGANIZATION AND AUDIENCE 69 Idea of Audience 69 News Orgamzattons 70 Autonomy, Constramts and Controls 74 Treatment of Copy 79

Chapter FIVe

NEWS VALUES Good and Bad Journahsm Competition Story Lmes and Stereotypes

89 102 109

Chapter Six

INFORMATION CRAFTSMEN Colleagues and Grapevmes Sources Decisions

120 121 131 139

Chapter Seven

PROCESS AND PICTURE EAST TIMOR 160 Informatton Channels 162 Development of Antagomsttc RelatiOns with Indonesia 168 East Timor and the Austrahan Agenda 173

Chapter Eight

VARIETIES OF TRUTH News and Ideology Newsmakmg Press Performance and Story Types

Btblwgraphy

89

182 183 191 191 203

CHAPTER ONE

Introductwn

" 'MY dear httle gtrl,' satd Chatrman Mao Tse-tung to Mrs Imelda Marcos durmg her trtp to Chma, 'I hke you because you get such bad press from the Western Journahsts'" (Far Eastern Economzc Revzew, 6 August 1976) It IS hard to find any other toptc that could make kmdred spmts of such otherwtse dtsstmtlar leaders. The chorus of complamts agamst Western press coverage of Asia has a wide range of members, mcludmg pohticians, diplomats and academics of wtdely varymg outlooks The cnttcs vary m their articulateness, substance and smcenty. The present study does not seek to JOin either the attack or the defence, but to examme how soctal processes affect the picture of Southeast Asia conveyed through news to the Austrahan pubhc. It ts addressed to three posstble audtences. Ftrst. tt IS addressed to other sociOlogists and scholars of mass commumcatton, for whom tt hopefully contnbutes to the study of newsmakmg, both conceptually and empmcally, m the parttcular context of newsmakmg m Southeast Asta for Western, parttcularly Austrahan, audtences Secondly, tt IS addressed to the Journahsts tt studies. Although they know far more than I about some aspects of thetr work, hopefully they wtll find matenal here that prompts reflectiOn on the strengths and weaknesses of current practtces. Fmally, tt ts addressed to scholars and others mterested m Southeast Asta and Australian-Southeast Astan relatiOns, for whom news IS both a source of mformatton and sometm1es a cause for concern Hopefully, tt wtll gtve them more perspecttve m usmg news, and m evaluatmg what tt ts and ts not posstble for newsmen to do 1

In Chapters One and Two, the soctal environment m whtch contemporary newsmakmg occurs IS outlined through a bnef htstory of foretgn news and, m Chapter Two, by outhnmg Its organizatiOnal basts Chapters Three to Ftve examme the social processes of newsmakmg Chapter Three looks at the Journalists' work sttuatiOn thetr career patterns, problems and sattsfacttons, and the nature of thetr work and "news beat" Chapter Four looks at the Journaltst as communicator and employee Chapter Ftve looks at the news values whtch gmde the Journalist and affect hts output Chapter Stx, under the headmg Informatton Craftsmen, exammes some of the more mterestmg aspects of Journalism as an occupatton, and some of the more subtle mfluences on news output Journahsts' relattons wtth thetr colleagues and sources, and the chmces they somettmes confront m dectdmg the truth and consequences of what they wnte Chapters Seven and Etght conclude the study by lookmg at the effects of these processes on news content Chapter Seven presents a case-study of Austrahan reportmg on East Ttmor, whtle Chapter Etght, under the headmg, Vanettes of Truth, exammes general arguments about the nature of Western news coverage of Southeast Asta, and obstacles to tmproved coverage

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Among the mam pomts made m the study are the followmg Foretgn correspondence ts a comparattvely recent phenomenon, begmmng on a systemattc basts, only m the mtd-nmeteenth century The growth of foreign correspondence parallels the paths of techmcal posstbthty, economtc profitabthty, and areas of greatest metropolitan mterest. Western foretgn correspondence m As1a remamed especially undeveloped unttl the huge mtlux of Journaltsts m World War Two Smce then, war has contmued to gtve the mam tmpetus to concentrated JOUrnalistic activity, as m Korea and VIetnam Although the ongmal technical problems and communicatiOns problems offoretgn correspondence have been largely overcome (thts ts less true m broadcast JOurnaltsm), new obstacle~ - mcreasmg economtc costs of mamtammg correspondents overseas, mcreasmg economtc problems of some news orgamzattons (espectally Fleet Street), percetved lack of audtence and edttonal mterest, mcreasmg restncttveness by Astan Governments -suggest the foretgn corres2

pondent will remam a rare, although not necessanly endangered, species, and produce httle optimism for any expanded coverage of Southeast Asia In considermg the flow of news, four different types of news channels and Journahsts must be distmguished news agencies, daily newspaper special correspondents, TV and radiO Journahsts, and magazmes Each of these channels has a distmctive ratson d'etre. pattern of staffing and orgamzatwn, role and work patterns, and type of coverage There are only two fulltlme staff correspondents workmg for Austrahan newspapers m Southeast Asia One of the three newspaper ownership groups -the Murdoch group, accountmg for 23o/o of daily newspaper circulatiOn, mcludmg Austraha's only national paper - has no correspondent m Southeast As1a. The Australian Broadcastmg Commission IS the only Australian broadcastmg news orgamzatwn with any JOurnalists based fulltime m Asia No Australian commercial TV channel has made any contmumg effort to secure newsfilm and reportage out of Asia, except to subscnbe to the TV newsfilm syndiCatiOn service V1snews. Itself all but nonexistent m Asian newsgathenng Bemg an Asian or Southeast Asian correspondent Is constdered a presttgwus Job m most news orgamzatwns, and one sought by most Journahsts. The trend mcreasmgly ts for Western correspondents to come to As1a on a relattvely shortterm appomtment (two to five years) as one part of a contmumg career Compared with the World War Two and Korean War generatiOns of Journahsts, few Journalists presently under thirty-five or forty years of age wtll make Asia thetr permanent home or stay here ten years or more This ts especially true m the most highly bureaucratised news orgamzatwns, t~e Amencan TV networks, T1me, Newsweek, Reuters, the ABC, the New York T1mes, and, to some extent, the Amencan news agencies. Although most Western Journahsts express a positive attitude to bemg here, an mterest m Southeast Asia for Its own sake was commonly a less Important Impetus than an mterest m bemg a foretgn correspondent, the locatton bemg secondary. The sources of satisfactiOn most often ctted by Journahsts were autonomy, travel and an mterest m domg thetr Job well. The problems most often named were family and personal problems resultmg from mob1ltty and demandmg work, susp1ctons and

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restnctwns of Southeast As1an Governments, phys1cal danger (espeCially for photographers and TV correspondents), problems w1th the1r employmg orgamzatton. The most notable aspects of the correspondents' source structure are 1ts potential d1vers1ty and the symb10t1c relation between fore1gn newsmen and fore1gn diplomats. There IS a degree of superfic1ahty bu1lt mto the role ot fore1gn correspondent by (a) lack of aud1ence and ed1tonal mterest and fam1hanty, (b) the number and vanety of stones he must cover, and (c) the restnctwns on any small bureau or one-man operat1on These all mean there IS normally greater pay-off for the correspondent m scanmng for and reworkmg fa1rly eas1ly available mformatton than m ongmatmg hard-to-get mformatton Despite the stress placed m ]ournahsm on commumcatwn sk11ls, almost no JOUrnahsts have any clear or specific 1deas of the aud1ence they are meant to be commumcatmg to. Compared w1th most JOUrnahsts, the autonomy ot foreign correspondents 1s h1gh m determmmg the1r own actlVlty, story cho1ce etc. Newspaper correspondents (and Far Eastern Economtc Revzew correspondents) have the greatest autonomy. Televlston Journahsts, followed by news magazme Journahsts, have the h1ghest degree of consultatwn w1th the1r head offices The pomt at whiCh the potential for conflict between the Journahst and the news orgamzatwn seems greate~t 1s in the treatment of copy - because even small changes or om1ss10ns may alter the nuances or balance of the ongmal, and because 1t ts a recurrmg s1tuat10n m wh1ch the potential for conflict anses each t1me the correspondent files As an almost universal rule, the relatton between the foreign correspondent and h1s employmg orgamzatton mh1b1ts rather than encourages pursumg more depth, comprehensiveness and prec1s10n m h1s reportmg ObJectlVlty or some surrogate concept 1s almost umversally held by the Journahsts, although there 1s not always a consistent or detailed v1ew of 1ts 1mphcatwns IndlVlduals' attitudes to compet1t10n vary greatly, although m those situations of d1rect. mstttut1onahzed competition- between the four agencies, the Amencan TV networks, Tzme and Newsweek -no one holds att1tudes wh1ch are actiVely mcons1stent w1th compet1t10n Western news values, shaped by perceptwns of aud1ence and 4

edttonal mterest and famtlianty, comtram and dtrect worktng JOUrnalists Cnsts Journalism, the hometown angle, and concentratiOn on salient themes and toptcs Impose a very selective lens on the selectiOn of Astan news. The sttuatwn of the foretgn correspondent ts particularly conducive to co-operatiOn wtth hts colleagues Such co-operatiOn ts an Important, although mdtrect, mfluence on newsmakmg Its most Important form!. are casual and unstructured, conststmg of mformatwn whtch ts not Itself news, but helpful as a prelude to pursumg particular news, and m formmg JUdgements Despite the dtverstty of possible sources, the contact of foreign correspondents wtth the local society ts often limtted and shallow All governments m Southeast Asta are becommg mcreasmgly restnctive m their attitudes to both the domestic and foretgn press, and thts hostility IS a growmg problem for foretgn correspondents. The emphasis and content of Australtan reportmg of East Ttmor's annexatiOn by Indonesia diverged sharply from the wishes of both the Australian and Indonesian Governments. The nature of news coverage was dec1s1vely shaped m the penod between August and December 1975, and affected pnmartly by the first-hand reports commg from Australian JOurnalists m Ttmor. In addttwn, the deaths of five Australtan Journalists m October was the most Important of a number of mctdents whtch provtded a strong moral defimtton of the ISSUe. Vtews of foretgn news content as being a dtrect, systematic expressiOn of any one person's or orgamzatwn's tdeology, usually fat! to take account of the tdeologtcal dtverstty and ambtgutty wtthm much news coverage More centrally, they typtcally fat! to g1ve an adequate account of the processes of newsmaktng. Any attempt to understand news content wtthout understandmg newsmakmg ts bound to be parttal and likely to be wrong The processes of newsmaking are not polittcally neutral or tdeologlcally mert. News values, assumpttons about audtence mterests and attitudes, the productiOn and format demands of news orgamzattons, the d1ffenng pnonty and authonty accorded to dtfferent news sources, all constitute a very considerable and hm1tmg pnsm through whtch Southeast Astan news ts filtered to Australia.

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The princtpal means of gathermg data has been mtervtewmg Journahsts workmg m the regton as foretgn correspondents. 1 Two anctllary means were observatwn of them m workmg sttuattons, and ofthe1r output, that ts, what actually appeared m the medta as news The mtervtews were open-ended and wtde-rangmg, rather than formally structured and quantitatiVe They covered a large range of common ground wtth all Journalists, but also pursued thetr mdlVIdual expenences and attttudes. Such an approach ts very dependent on the co-operatton of the Journahsts, thetr wtllmgness to talk openly and at length Overall thts was excellent No one refused to see me, and only a small handful were unforthcommg about thetr work. A more quantitatiVe approach was reJected because the numbers were too small and were further fragmented by vanables such as type of news medmm, nattonality, parttculanttes of employmg orgamzations, stze of beat, staff correspondents versus strmgers, etc. Moreover, tt would probably produce less valid and mstghtful data. The most mterestmg questwns elude rtgtd categones, and are best explored through dtscusston, through the cumulatiOn of mdtvtdual cases, and the dtsttlling of tmpresstons. Thts approach ts not w1thout problems. It somettmes seemed that after talkmg to one Journalist I had a hypothests, after talkmg to two I had a hypothesis wtth vanatwns, and after talkmg to three I had a hypothesis refuted. In the analysts I have constdered the data carefully before makmg a statement, and have searched for mconststenctes and vanatwns m the data. Fmally, although the mtervtews were not formal, they were purpostve and sought to venfy and compare the mformatton from dtfferent Journahsts against each other. I have trted to keep the language as plam and clear as posstble, and to mtmmtze socwlogtcal Jargon, because two of the mtended audiences for the study are not sociologtcal spectahsts, and because the level oftheonzmg m the study IS fairly low that IS, 1t ts theonzmg about a parttcular sttuatton rather than trymg to formulate general laws or perspectiVes about the nature of society, commumcatwn, power, etc. It ts, none the less, a theoretical study that seeks to conceptualize and descnbe soctal processes, rather than, for example, to 1

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The research for thts study was done between February 1976 and January 1977 Except m rare cases, no ment10n ts made of developments atter that date A ltst of mtervtewees wtth the postt!Ons they held at the ttme ot mtervtew can be found at the conclusiOn of the text In the text Itself, names of correspondents are usuaJly used wtthout gtvmg thetr orgamzattonallmks

g1ve phys1cal descnpttons of events and people (cf Crouse 1973), and mev1tably some may find It too abstract for their taste In wntmg, I always refer to correspondents w1th male pronouns, both for s1mphc1ty of expresston and because 1t 1s overwhelmmgly a male occupatwn There were no female correspondents m the more than seventy I mterv1ewed (although there are two female Western fore1gn correspondents workmg m Southeast As1a, Kate Webb and Judy B1rd W1lhams, and I apolog1se to them for th1s style of expresswn)

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In any cons1deratton of fore1gn news, the first thmg to note IS the recency and remarkab1hty of the phenomenon News as 1t ex1sts today - mformatwn about d1stant events transmitted speed1ly to a popular aud1ence- IS a novelty m h1story. In the thousands of years of orgamsed soc1et1es on earth, men have survived more than 99% of the1r t1me without tt (Bagd1ktan 1971, p 46). Unttl th1s century, the news m general could be characterized as scarce, late, expensive, and usually wrong . . The press was In the virtually nonexistent before the eighteenth century . . century between the mventton of the telegraph m 1840 and the outbreak of World War II, all the foundattons of modern mass mformatton were la1d the rotary press (1847), the telephone (1870), radio (1922), and telev1s10n (1930). The fall of kmgdoms and d1smtegratton of emp1res ushered m the 1dea of freedom of expresston. . Once scarce, slow m arnvmg, costly, and maccurate, the news became abundant, mstantaneous, cheap, and preCise (Servan-Schrelber 1974, pp. 190, 192). The key watershed in the estabhshment of fore1gn news came w1th the Industnal Revolution In the years between 1820 and 1848 the steamshtp, ratlroad, new pnnting techmques, and the telegraph produced stunnmg changes m the way md1v1duals saw themselves and their positions m soctety. Particularly tmportant was the change from ammal transportatton to abstract commumcatton From prehlstonc ttmes to the nmeteenth century, messages of substance could travel no faster than a man or horse could run, a p1geon 7

could fly, or a boat could satl . The most spectacular leap m commumcatwns came when message transmissiOn was separated from transportation The telegraph, sendmg messages wtth the speed of hght, had a soctal, economtc, and culturaltmpact comparable to that of televtston a century later (Bagdtktan 1971' pp 4-6) Speed was the pnme motive of most enterpnse and onginaltty m foretgn news coverage at that time The effort to be first wtth exclustve news was the main selhng point and was the most common way m whtch reputations were established Havas founded hts news agency (later to become one of the big three m the world news cartel, and to contmue today as Agence France-Presse) by mterceptmg the French Government's system of semaphore commumcations and reachmg Pans wtth them before anyone else Reuters, one of the four mam Western agenctes today, began by bemg first wtth the news between Brussels and Aachen before they were hnked by telegraph. Reuters followed by becoming the best exponent of fast communicatiOns by telegraph, using a network of correspondents and beatmg the longer, more eloquent dtspatches of the newspapers' special correspondents. The first Amencan news co-operatives were based around attempts to be first with the news from Europe by meetmg mcommg boats and usmg earner ptgeons or, when posstble, telegraph. Although being first wtth the news is still a strong theme in Journalism, today it rarely involves the logtstical mgenutty or the wmmng time margins tt dtd then Reuters' reputation was greatly enhanced when tt earned news of Lmcoln's assassmatton two days before anyone else in Europe Durmg the Mextcan-Amencan War, the New York Sun was proudly boastmg that none of Its competitors could match Its abihty to print news from the battlefield only eighteen days after it had occurred. From thts constant dnve towards faster commumcatwn we have moved from a world, m the early nmeteenth century, where 1t took seventeen days for Nelson's vtctory at Trafalgar to be prmted m a London paper (tt was not printed in a French paper until after the war, Hohenberg 1964, pp 4-5) and where one of the most tmportant battles of the BntishAmencan War of 1812 at New Orleans was m fact fought two weeks after a peace treaty had been stgned on the other side of the Atlantic, the news of the battle reaching Washmgton nearly a month later but 8

sttll before news of the treaty (Bagdtktan 1971, pp 29t) to a world where an audience of millions ~aw TV ptctures of the first men on the moon 1 3 seconds after It occurred, where a spectacular unprecedented event like the assassmatton of President Kennedy or the sackmg of Pnme Mmtster Whttlam can spread through a whole nation m a matter of hours But technological possibility only becomes established practice when someone perceives It as m thetr mterest to make It so The mterests of government policymakers m early and reliable Intelligence about relevant events Is obvtous It ts clear also that commercial advantage often accrues to those earliest wtth new mformat10n, shown most dramatically by the fortune made by the Rothschtlds through thetr bemg first wtth knowledge of the result at Waterloo (Hohenberg 1%4, p 12; Servan-Schretber 1974, p. 189) It ts not surpnsing then that press attempts at foretgn news have often related to one or other of these, for example, especially the efforts of both Havas and Reuters to help finance thetr general news service wtth economtc news as well However, definmg press mterest m foretgn news IS slightly more dtfficult. Sometimes It has led dtrectly to larger circulatiOn and so, desptte the extra expense, has patd off financially But although It IS true that economic constramts have limtted the amount of foretgn news coverage It ts not true that the amount of foretgn news gtven has always been to the financial advantage of the paper provtdmg 1t, and must be explamed m some other way professiOnal motiVatiOn, destre for prestige or reputatiOn, or a generalised sense of competitiOn that wants to be able to provtde anythmg a competitor can It ts not surpnsmg that the growth of foretgn news m the nmeteenth century followed closely the themes and paths that most Interested the public, entrepreneurs and officials - war and emptre The pattern was not for small but consistent coverage from a number of places, but for papers to pursue one or two spectacular stones wtth saturation cover War reportmg was the catalyst for the growth of foretgn news It sold papers The public seemed to have a great thtrst for war news, and the second half of the nmeteenth century was a good time for reportmg wars and conquest, wtth competmg impenal powers Jostling for posttion A secondary theme was the adventure of exploratiOn, for example, the New York Herald's expedttlon by Stanley to find LlVlngstone m Afnca. It was a short step from sending out parttes to report on explorers to sendmg out

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part1es to be explorers, and soon papers were sponsormg expeditions, for example, to the North Pole So from the begmnmg, many themes emerged, wh1ch were to charactenze the reportmg offore1gn countnes to some degree st1ll m the 1970s competttton for speed, a preoccupatiOn w1th war and fightmg, the domtnance of the "hometown angle", and the use of fore1gn countnes as a backdrop for human mterest and cunostty stones. The obvtous changes m technology, and the preoccupations w1th certam spectacular story types, should not divert attentiOn from an equally fundamental but more subtle development m foreign news the Improvement m the standards of news collectmg. Up to about 1500 tydmgs was the usual word to descnbe repons of current events The word news was comed to d1fferent1ate between the casual d1ssemmat10n of mformatwn and the dehberate attempt to gather and process the latest mtelhgence (Emery 1962, p. 6) The ongmal system of gathenng fore1gn news, st1ll dommant m the early mneteenth century, was to rely on handouts from the home government or to use foreign papers as the pnme source of mformatton D1ssattsfact1on with the dependabihty and accuracy of these sources, both most hkely to be unrehable when most needed, gradually and uncertamly led to the development of mdependent efforts at newsgathermg (cf Rosh co 1975, Ch Three). The Tzmes, for example, rehed pnmanly on partt1me correspondents, who while residmg abroad sent copy as they wished, or used JUntor officers m the military to report a war. While this system has some advantages over usmg only official or fore1gn sources, It was still far from satisfactory Throughout the mneteenth century, there was growing emphasis on gettmg fore1gn news at Its source, and usmg fulltime journalists rather than parttimers whose ch1ef v1rtue was their presence. Thus, Reuters used agents to supply h1m with the earhest possible news of developments and on whose availability and accuracy he could rely. The Times developed "a small but distinguished group of career foreign correspondents who were makmg history for the Tzmes, and often for the empire as well, at the turn of the century" (Hohenberg 1964, p. 146).

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The most notable among these early, fulltlme Tzmes foreign correspondents for our present purposes, was G.E Mornson ("Chmese Mornson"). The first emment Austrahan correspondent m Asta, he dtstmgutshed htmself not only by the quahty of hts dtspatches, but by hts courage dunng the Boxer Upnsmg, and by becommg the first foretgn advtser employed by the Chmese Repubhc Cynl Pearl's emmently readable btography of htm provtdes many mterestmg compansons with foretgn correspondents m Asta today. Mornson's mottve m becommg a newspaper correspondent was "to dtstmgutsh htmself above the common herd" (p 20) He set about hts goal by htmself undertakmg newsworthy exploits and then wntmg about them. Early on, he walked from Melbourne to Adelatde, then took a canoe down the entire length of the Murray Rtver and finally became the first person to walk across Austraha, whtch he dtd from North to South, alone, only twenty years after the fully equtpped Burke and Wills expedttion had penshed en route The pattern of young correspondents estabhshmg themselves by takmg on explotts too hazardous for regular correspondents to bother wtth, sttll extsts to a degree today, espectally m war sttuattons hke Vtetnam or Lebanon (although few share Mornson's passton for walking). A tradttion m popular Journahsm for correspondents to make stones out of thetr own expenences, usually fnvolous or full of exaggerated herotcs, has always extsted Mornson htmself dtd not glamonse hts own explotts Rather, he pubhshed a manuscnpt ofhts Journeys through a remote part of Chma, where he documented tts famme and cruelttes m nch, movmg detatl, wtth the stmple title "An Australian m Chma, bemg the narrattve of a qutet Journey across Chma to Burma." Chnstopher Rand, writing m 1954, complamed A main vtce of reporters m the Far East is the tendency to vtew the reportmg trade, or the Far East, or the two combmed, as merely an interestmg background for one's own personahty The phrase tramed seal can, wtth httle stretchmg, apply to anyone who lives by self-laudatory accounts of hts adventures whtle crossmg forbidden Ttbet or eating bullets m a no-man's land .... The bad taste ... ts usually too flagrant to be harmful and the mtsmformation too self-centered to cloud much of the waters (Lyons, ed., 1965, pp. 303-4). 11

Tht~ type of wntmg has been dymg out, partly because It IS much harder now, wtth tens of thousands of Australian tounsts vtsttmg A-,ia each year, for the sheer novelty of bemg m a place to be enough basts tor a story One topic m Mornson's biography has a dtstmctly modern nnght~ dealmgs with employers over financial questiOns After the notonety he gamed from his walk across Australia, The Age sponsored, wtth great fanfare, an expeditiOn by htm to New Gumea (m competitiOn with a similar one orgamsed by The Argus) It began wtth great hope and David Syme (editor of The Age) telegraphed htm "DO NOT STUDY ECONOMY IN MEN OR EQUIPMENT FOR PERSONAL SAFETY OR SUCCESS WIRE IF ANYTHING REQUIRED SYDNEY MORNING HERALD SHARING EXPENSES." But the expeditiOn t1oundered. Mornson was badly wounded and lucky to hve after an attack by some natives, recetvmg one spear wound m the nght stde ofhts nose, a quarter mch below the nght eye and another "pterced the abdommal wall 21/2 mches above the umbthcus" (p 51). He and hts compamon took several days to reach Port Moresby, durmg whtch he was unable to eat, was "vomtttmg large clots of blood", often unconsciOus, and always fevensh and m great pam Durmg hts time m New Gumea hts wetght had dropped trom over 11 stone to 7 stone 2 lbs After hts return to hts family home m Geelong, hts left leg was still numb He could hardly walk, had Intermittent fever and needed pam-ktlhng drugs to sleep (finally needmg an operatiOn m England to properly remove the second spear's remams). When he broached the questiOn of medical expemes with The Age, he received from Its manager the followmg reply

Mr. Syme requests me to ask you what further expenses you want the firm to defray You must bear m mmd that already your expenses have far excelled the hmtt to whtch you pledged yourself and that we have gamed nothmg whatever from the Expedition one way or another, and that m fact the ExpeditiOn has not only been a pecumary loss to us, but the source of senlilus annoyance and vexatton (p 53) Stmtlarly, after Mornson wanted to leave The Ttmes, It was made clear to htm their gratitude was "boundless but not negotiable" (p 258) and that he could expect no gratUity payment at all. Although 12

financtal complamts by JOUrnalists today are not qmte so dramattc. they are stt11 qmte common (more frequent m some orgamzattons than others). Morrt~on somettmes had a feelmg common to foretgn JOUrnalist~ everywhere, a strong sense of the dtspanty between events as he saw them on the spot and the way they are seen m hts home country When a promment Londoner was decorated for valour dunng the Boxer Upnsmg and descnbed m London as a "man of mettle", Mornson wrote m hts dtary "Thus ts htstory wntten the greate~t poltroon of the stege and the cuckold wtth the longest horns m Chma" (p 208) Mornson also suffered from edttors altenng ht~ copy (for example, p. 139) and complamed of "the systematic suppresston of facts when they confltct wtth the preconceived preJud tee~ of Chtrol [fotetgn edttor]" (p 218) The Hzstory of the Tzmes calmly notes Chtrol "altered the text of Mornson's dtspatches because he thought thetr publication tmpolittc Naturally, thts explanatiOn dtd not always reconctle Mornson to such treatment ofhts messages" (p 373). Such alteratton seems to be vtewed as the norm "In the use of matenal [Wallace, Chtrol's predecessor] took mto account first the dtplomattc effect of a telegram and, secondly, tts value as new~" (p 132) Moreover, edttors even then showed a marked reluctance to believe news they dtd not want to hear Bnttsh and Amencan edttor~ wtthheld for two weeks the news of Japan's Twenty One Demand~ on Chma, after they had been published and freely dtscussed m Pekmg The Tzmes believed the reports were "wtlfully exaggerated" (Pearl, p 308) Monson's fellow Journahsts helped htm learn the rules of the trade When he arnved m Pekmg, a fnend advtsed htm on how to work there as a correspondent If he wtshed to cable the latest mtelligence on, say, Manchuna, he would call m hts No. 1 boy. They would have a conver~atton m ptdgm, "What belong very bad busmess m Manchuna ?" The boy would say "I no savvy " Hts fnend would then say "What for you no savvy Russta belong very bad Manchuna." The boy would say. "Please, Master, suppose belong angly, allltte "And that evenmg a telegram would be sent for the enlightenment of the world to the followmg effect "In a confidential conversatiOn whtch I had thts afternoon wtth a htgh Chmese authonty, whose name I am not at hberty to mentton, he spoke wtth mdtgnatton 13

of the aggresstve attitude assumed by Russta to Manchuna (p 82)

After The Times - actmg on a mtstaken report from the Dmly Mml that Mornson had been ktlled m a massacre of Europeans dunng the Boxer Upnsmg- published a long and glowmg obituary of Mornson, a colleague advtsed htm to seek a doubhng of hts salary (p 125) In some respects however the attitudes of foretgn Journahsts have defimtely changed Mornson appears to have been an avid gourmet, to have had recurrent romantic troubles and a senes of less worthy escapades and to have been an enthusiast for nsque, mfanttle Jokes - all tratts whtch have completely dted out among modern JOUrnahsts Mornson, hke most emment Journahsts, had complex and vaned relattons wtth government offictals He early became the centre of a "dtplomattc cyclone" when he revealed Russtan destgns m Manchuna, at first dented by the Foretgn Office but later conceded He was cnttctsed m the House but The Ttmes sprang vtgorously to hts defence (pp. 96i) He also repeatedly exposed the brutality of German acttvtty, to whtch Fteld Marshall Count von Waldersee, the chtefGerman offictalm Chma, replied

The Ttmes . . ts represented here by a wretched scamp Mr Mornson . probably m true English reporter's meglomama, beheves I ought to take nottce of htm I am no more Impressed by press attacks than by the barkmg of a dog (p. 132). Mornson's relations wtth the Japanese were good at the begmnmg when he saw them as a counterweight to Russta and was thetr avtd supporter m the Japan-Russta War, but he later became very apprehensive at the expanstomst destgns and ruthlessness of Japan Hts deahngs wtth them at the two stages provtde an mterestmg counterpomt. When on good terms, he explOited hts support to get cooperatiOn (p 99) but afterwards stood on pnnctple Twelve years ago, I was sent to Pekmg The mstructtons gtven to me were stmply that I was to tell the truth wtthout fear or favour I have endeavoured to allow no personal preJudtce or predtlectton to mterfere wtth my work or to colour any cable that I have sent the great Journal I am servmg. I feel mdtgnant when I read in the papers that I am pro-thts or anti-that country I am 14

an Enghshman and all I thmk about and all that I desire to serve are the mterests of my country (p 196) Two mterestmg pomts emerge m the last sentence - Mornson made a d1stmct10n between lookmg after the patnohc mterests of England and bemg partisan. He saw no conflict between this pred1lect10n and h1s telhng the truth without fear or favour Second, he descnbes himself as an Enghshman, although the mdependent Austrahan nation had been m existence for eight years when he gave the speech. Fmally, 1t should not be thought that Mornson was too enamoured with the pnnc1ples he so gallantly enunciated In hi'> diary he descnbed the occas10n as h1s flapdoodle speech

*

*

*

An mterestmg prefigurmg of many of the themes that have marked foreign correspondence nght up to today 1s found m Mornson's expenences But m one respect he was atypical of foreign correspondents of his time. that he was m Asia at all The development of foreign correspondence followed closely the areas of greatest metropohtan mterest, cheapest and most accessible commumcat10ns, etc , which meant As1a was largely Ignored. The Bnt1sh press was most mterested m Europe and then m Empire, especially the domm10ns, and Amencan foreign mterest was largely centred on Europe John Hohenberg, surveymg the state of Amencan foreign correspondence at the end of the 1920s, noted that It was concentrated m Europe "Elsewhere m the world, Amencan coverage of Asia was sketchy, and the reportmg from other areas not commonly covered, was based on stunts or cnses" (1964, p 285) Australian foreign new~. nght through to World War Two, was dommated by news emanatIng from London (for example, Ball 1938). When Richard Hughes went to Tokyo m 1939, with prewar tens10n with Japan very high, he was the only Austrahan JOUrnahst there (Hughes 1972) Events have always shaped the spread of foreign news In the 1930s a new element emerged there were JUst too many events The Japanese mvas10n ofChma, the Spamsh war, and the tens10ns aroused m Europe by Germany and Italy had stramed the century-old system of gathenng foreign news by cns1s pnonty There were now too many cnse~. too much to be told, too httle time to do It, too few who really 15

knew how, scant opportumty to try to explam why all this horror \\-as pilmg on a fnghtened world (Hohenberg 1964 p 322). In the emergmg multicnsis, mult1centred world, foreign correspondence became an established and expected part of the news enterpne. Technological capability, mcreasmg travel and exchange, the growth of the mternational economy all provided the background that made mcreased Western coverage of Asia possible and de~1rable But the real motor that drove the Western press to Increased attentiOn to Asia was war (cf Kmghtley 1975) A small group of correspondents had come to cover the war m Chma, but with the advent of the Pacific war agamst Japan, a small army of correspondents, especially from Amenca, began covermg East and Southeast Asia At the end of the war, most went home but some stayed to cover the Amencan occupatiOn of Japan, and others covered the revolutiOn m Chma The Korean War and, ten years later, the VIetnam War both received contmumg and promment attentiOn. This potted history of foreign news - Its recency, Its haphazard begmnmgs, the techmcal, economic and political environments that have shaped It, Its preoccupatiOns, the themes from Mornson's expenence that recur today - g1ve some perspective for the contemporary study of the flow of foreign news, especially from Southeast Asia to Australia The factors which previOusly mh1b1ted the growth of foreign news have now disappeared - that Is, techmcal capacity, low education levels, societies bemg more Isolated and less mterconnected with the mternatwnal environment than today But new ones have become more Important "Techmcal factors have opened the way for excellence of coverage on a scale never known before, economic forces operate m the opposite d1rectwn" (Schwartz 1970, p 755) These economic forces mclude dechnmg press profitability and the costs of mamtammg foreign correspondents abroad, but also mvolve the attitudes and pnontles of propnetors, editors, and subeditors, and of the audience and the attitudes of countnes foreign correspondents are reportmg from Accordmg to Servan-Schre1ber (1974, p 153), less than 1o/o of Amenca's 1,750 daily newspapers have any foreign correspondents at all, and less still would have any fulltime staff correspondents m Asia The economic cns1s of Bntam's daily newspapers, and the m16

creasmg withdrawal of Fleet Street's foretgn correspondents, are well-known The presttgtous London Trmes has one staff correspondent m As1a, less mdependent newsgathenng resources now than tt had m 1900 TV, the most consumed and most popular of contemporary news medta, has mherent logistical and economic problems whtch restnct 1ts tore1gn news coverage, even 1f there existed the determmatton to provtde more. Many Journahsts are pesstm1st1c about the future of Western foretgn correspondence from Asta Partly, thts may be a psychological response to the end of the war m Indochma, "whtch took the mam prop out from under us" (Shaplen) It ts also a response to the seemmgly mternal preoccupatiOns of Western societies and the decreasmg edttonal mterest m foretgn news. The pe~cetved nsmg authontanamsm of many governments ts also a problem Lewts Stmons satd that a semor Washmgton Post edttor had told htm recently that he dtd not thmk there would be any Western fore1gn correspondents m the Th1rd World m ten years' t1me Wh1le the prediction 1s extreme, 1t 1s hkely that the foretgn correspondent w11l remam a rare, although not necessanly endangered, spec1es. The future seems as hkely to bnng a detenoratwn m the amount and quahty of fore1gn news reportmg from Southeast As1a as 1t does an Improvement.

17

CHAPTER TWO

News Channels

0 N E of the lea.st controversial propositiOns about news 1s that It IS a h1ghly orgamzed activity The huge expense of staffing and productiOn, the efficiency needed for deadhnes and dtstnbutwn ensure that news Is overwhelmmgly the provmce of very large orgamzat1ons Nowhere Is this more true than m foreign news The costs mvolved m supportmg newsgathermg actiVIties abroad and the logistics needed to transmit the news qmckly through routme channels are even greater than for domestic news. An appropnate startmg pomt for the study is, then, the organizatiOnal bases of the flow of Asian news to Australia News Agenc1es There are four news agencies dommatmg the flow of mternatwnal news to Australia, and to most of the rest of the noncommumst world (with the notable exception of Japan, whtch has two news agencies of 1ts own, Kyodo and JIJI). These four are Associated Press (AP), Umted Press InternatiOnal (UPI), Reuters, and Agence France- Presse (AFP). Each of these four 1s active m Southeast Asia, competmg for clients w1thm the area and for coverage of It to the rest of the world Both the mstitutwn of news agencies and the use of special foretgn correspondents grew up durmg the second half of the nmeteenth century News agencies evolved pnmanly because they provided clients with a newsgathermg operation beyond the cost of any mdiVldual newspaper The mam Impetus to the growth of news agencies was not the larger papers but the smaller ones They could not afford an mdependent foreign staff of their own, especially one

18

that had to cover those places that were only occasiOnally newsworthy as well as those nchest m news Reuters offictally traces tts foundmg to 1851, but m many ways 1858 ts a more appropnate year That was the start of Reuters "Electnc news", that ts, telegraphtc despatches from foretgn centres. The telegraph bas1eally changed the nature of foretgn news and provtded a much more congemal chmate for the growth of agenctes. The telegraph mtroduced a new cost mto foretgn news, a stgmticantly greater charge than postmg letters or paymg for ptgeon feed, and mtroduced a new emphasis on speed and necessanly brevity It thus made newspapers' special correspondents both stgmficantly more expensive and less useful At the same ttme, there was a growmg provmctal press m Bntam plus the gradual emergence of a popular press that provided news as well as tittllatton. Neither of these categones catered to an audience that could sustam a large foreign news service. The most Important opposition to the nse of Reuters came from The Tzmes, at first based on conservative scepticism but later on Its own mterests When m the late nmeteenth century The Tzmes cost three pence per Issue compared to the popular papers' halfpenny, It was clear that any move whtch heightened the standardizatiOn of newspapers was a threat to The Tzmes m both status and sales. It could no longer clatm supremacy m foretgn reportmg The Tzmes also felt that a monopoly held by Reuters could be used to extort htgher costs More subtly, It threatened the access of Its correspondents to news sources A key source, hke General Kttchener, could dtscnmmate m favour of Reuters by saymg that he was thus treatmg all papers the same Thts was a particularly good weapon agamst troublesome and cnttcal reporters hke The Tzmes' Russell. The Tzmes' attempts to curb the growth and mfluence of Reuters proved futile but m the process the pattern of co-existence between special correspondents and agencies became established The Tzmes had to subscnbe as msurance agamst mtssmg a story but still rehed on Its own correspondents for longer and more analytical reports when they were available. But Reuters also found the htgh cost of mamtammg a comprehensive and speedy service burdensome. The tdea of a world news cartel between the three mam agencies -Reuters m England, Havas m Frances and Wolff m Germany - dlVIdmg between them dtfferent markets and areas of newsgathermg gamed support. As early as 19

1856, they had agreed to exchange financtal news In 1870, they JOtned wtth the New York AP to create a formal four power ne\\'~ cartel, whtch lasted nearly fifty years After World War One, Reuters and Havas took over Wolffs terntones But from then on, the old cartel never regamed tts force, because of the raptdly changmg world and espectally because of the growmg economtc muscle of Amencan newspapers (See also Ttffen 1976b, Hohenberg 1964, Storey 1951). The final breakdown was prectpttated by AP m 1934. when tt sold news to some Japanese chents Over the years, the structure of Reuters has changed It became solely concerned \\'Ith mternatwnal news after an agreement\\ tth the Bntish Press Assoctatton The Press AssoCiatiOn supphe~ all domestic news to Bnttsh subscnbers, whtle Reuters supplies them wtth foretgn news, and uses the Press Assoctatton to supply the news from Britam whtch tt dtstnbutes mternattonally Later, the Australtan Associated Press and the New Zealand Press AssociatiOn both became constituent members of Reuters. whtch also formed a special arrangement wtth the Press Trust of lndta In these ways Reuters ts the most mternattonally based m tts financial structure, whtch may explam why tt ts the only agency to make spectal allowances for dJtTerent time zones m tts mternat10nal servtce. The other survtvor, although m changed form, of the grand Reuters, Havas, Wolff news cartel, ts Agence France-Presse (AFP). It was started after the war by the French Government to replace the dtscredtted Havas agency The agency had been dtscredtted most tmmedtately by tts forced collaboratiOn wtth the Vtchy Government dunng the German occupation of France but, before the war, had been wtdely cnttctsed as corrupt and unrehable One reason for thts was that Hava~. the oldest of the news agenctes, had always been a suppher of adverttsmg as well as news, and the two roles dtd not always make for the best Journalism In addttton, the weakness of the French system, as tt then extsted, was that the factual news gatherer, as dtstmct from the editor or commentator, had no standing and recetved the barest subststence pay . The mere reporter, consequently, was looked down upon, the commentator, havmg more freedom to bestow hts favors, was eagerly sought after and rewarded m a vanety of ways (Hohenberg 1964, p 297) 20

The French medta mdustry ts not large enough to sustam an agency the stze of AFP The key financmg then came from the French Government and, although the agency IS now constitutiOnally free of government control, government subscnptwns still form a maJor part of Its revenue US$7 5 mtlhon dollars out of US$13 million whtch was It5 1966 revenue (Hohenberg 1967, p 29) The extent of AFP's government dependence ts sometimes a toptc of scorn, especially among Amencan Journalists One satd to me, only half Jokmgly, they were m the same class as Tass There has sometimes been cnttctsm that AFP put a "Gaulhst" !me on Its coverage, but such charges are dtfficult to establish, and do net appear to have any relevance to their work in Southeast Asta A number of other Journalists satd that AFP ts sometimes unreliable On the other hand, some see It as capable of occasiOnally bnlliant work Davtd Davtes, AEP Hong Kong, says they were first on the fall of Khrushchev, the fall of Lm Ptao, and the bombmg of Hanm It Is probably true that the central co-ordmatwn wtthm AFP Is not as strong as the others', and there ts therefore more vanatwn m quality dependmg who represents them m a particular place. Many Journalists talk about a dtfference between the French and Anglo-Saxon styles of Journalism. Anglo-Saxons start wtth a strong news lead and carefully attnbute the status of all assertiOns by glVlng the source for them. (There Is some vanatwn between the U.S tendency to source by name and the Australian and Bnttsh tendency, especially m foretgn Journalism, to be content with a general designatiOn- Western dtplomats m Jakarta satd, etc) French JOurnalists do not feel tmpelled to begm wtth a sharp statement of the mam news pomt, and may not come to It unttl they have set the scene suffictently, and sometimes, apparently leave assertions unsourced Perhaps sadly, AFP 1s bemg forced to conform to the Anglo-Saxon model, because 1ts purchase of a computer system s1m!lar to AP's means the chent ts supphed first only wtth the mtttal two lmes of a story, and then dec1des whether to call for the rest. The first two hnes must then g1ve the crux of the ttem The largest and financially strongest agencies are the two Amencan ones. The oldest and largest, Associated Press, was ongmally formed by a group of New York newspapers who sought to cut the1r newsgathenng costs by a hm1ted poohng of resources. After a number of false starts, It reached a form of co-operatiVe ownership, where each subscnber became a constituent member, wtth votmg 21

nghts on general AP pohcy It reached this form of ownersh1p m 1900, after whtch 1t grew qmckly. Its place in the original four agency cartel had been very much as the mmor partner. It was forced to accept foretgn news from the other three, and to g1Ve them, but not dtstnbute, news about Amenca As 1t grew, 1t chafed under these restnctwns. 1934 saw the successful conclus10n of the long, stubborn campa1gn to crack the entrenched European foreign news monopoly ... Breakup of the cartel enabled the cooperatiVe to butld up 1ts fore1gn serv1ce on a par wtth its domestic achievements (AP nd, p. 6)

AP had two mam Amencan competitors The Umted Press was formed m 1908, and the Hearst cham's Internatwnal News Service (INS) was formed a year after Both were much smaller than AP, and INS, m particular, remamed a shoestrmg operation. But they had one cruc1al effect -they prevented an AP monopoly, and, m t1me, forced the pattern of competition between agenctes whtch today allows any newspaper to subscnbe to as many agencies as 1t hkes. INS was sold to Umted Press in May 1958, makmg the new UPI a nval m s1ze to AP, and making them both the btggest news agenctes m the world. The source of the1r strength Is the nature of the U S. med1a market - 1ts s1ze, 1ts prospenty and its dtspersed structure. There are 1, 750 dally newspapers m the U S. and 7,586 radio and telev1s1on stations (Bagdtkian 1971). Eighty-six per cent of Amencan datly newspapers have a c1rculat10n of less than 50,000, and 53% have c1rculat1ons between 5,000 and 25,000 (1b1d, p. 74). These papers cannot afford the1r own natwnal, let alone mternatwnal, newsgathenng operation. A system of syndtcatwn and subscnpt10n to agencies is the 1deal way for them to cover the world beyond their local area. They prov1de the economic strength of the two Amencan agenc1es It 1s very difficult to get prec1se, comparative figures on the size of the four news agencies. Hester offered the table on the followmg page based on mformation supphed by news agency spokesmen m 1973 (1974, p. 215). It ts evident that different agencies are defining the same terms m dtfferent ways The UPI figure mcludes part-time employees, and the AFP figure for medta users "seems much exaggerated." 22

News Agency

Agence France- Presse (AFP) Associated Press (AP) Reuters Umted Press InternatiOnal (UPI)

Fore1gn Bureaux

Medw Users

165 53 55

17,000 8,500 4,450

1,800 3,300 1,660

238

6,546

10,000

Employees

I wrote to the headquarters of the four agencies seekmg more defimtive mformatwn. UPI did not reply The other three did, but the mformatwn Is not m the standardized form I requested. AP said they have an annual expenditure of more than US$80 mllhon, that they have more than 10,000 newspaper and broadcast clients m 107 countnes, that they have 111 bureaux m the USA and 58 tn other countnes They gave no figure on number of Journahsts or employees Reuters said their 1975 turnover was £30 mllhon (approx US$60 mllhon, dependmg on changtng exchange rates), that Reuters "and associates" had 153 offices worldwide, that the total number of staff IS around 2,000, that there are 350 fulltime correspondents and over 800 parttime. They gave no figures on numbers of subscnbers. AFP said their budget figure for 1977 would be approximately 250 mllhon francs (approx US$50 milhon), that they had 2,000 fullttme employees, w1th 968 Journahsts and a further 1,422 stnngers, with 106 bureaux (78 mam bureaux and 28 subbureaux) They satd that in December 1975 they had 1,365 subscnbers m 145 countnes, which mcluded 83 agencies, 345 newspapers, 185 radio and TV networks, and 743 others, of which an unknown number, but not all, were French Government subscnbers. All agencies provide a general news service, but m other respects their services and strengths differ. The strengths of then coverage m different regwns, and of their success in securmg local chents often correlates with the histoncal or present mterest of the agency's country. The American agencies estabhshed themselves firmly m Japan durmg the Occupation, and have been relatively stronger m the Phihppmes and Thalland, whereas Reuters has been strongest m areas that were part of the Bntish Empire. Apparently AFP is still one of the strongest agencies m South America, an area where It developed an mterest when the four power agency cartel assigned It to Havas. Apart from the general news service, Reuters provides an economic service that ts apparently very profitable to tt. AP prov1des 23

a more limited stock exchange service m conJunctiOn with Dow Jones Both AP and UPI provide news photos, which neither Reuters nor AFP does Reuters owns a share of V1snews and UPI 1s a part owner of UPITN w1th the Bnt1sh network ITN However, m neither case does this TV commitment play a maJor role m the agency's Southeast Asian news operatiOn. The activity pattern of agency Journalists differs from other correspondents Overall, competition between agencies 1s strong although some agency JOurnalists disclaimed any competitive onentatwn - and the grounds of competitiOn are pnmanly speed and accuracy The emphasis of agency work 1s therefore on the fastest possible venficatwn of spot news to the relative neglect of longer feature artiCles. They tend to file shorter pieces more frequently - most agency people 1n Southeast Asia would file at least one piece a day everyday, whereas a correspondent may go several days without fihng anythmg. In the folklore of agency Journahsm, most stones mvolve either speed or rehabihty for example, X was late on Sukarno's death or Y agency got this story wrong The nature of agency work produces a different staffing pattern Most obvwusly there are more of them In most countnes each agency has one Western (or Western-tramed correspondent) plus at least one local Journahst (with perhaps a number of local strmgers outside the capital city). The pnnc1pal exception IS that both AP and UPI have an Amencan correspondent m Smgapore who IS also responsible for Malaysia and Indonesia Typically where there IS a team of JOurnahsts m a city, there IS a division of labour where the expatnate, as bureau chief, IS responsible for wntmg the story, for covenng diplomatic and foreign sources, and overseeing bureau activity. He Is fairly officebound, "quarter-backmg" most reportmg actiVIty from there. The local Journahst does the legwork of covenng local sources especially If the expatnate cannot speak the local language, and may handle arrangements with the national bureaucracy. If the Journalists have a good workmg relatiOn this can be a very frmtful arrangement It giVes them greater freedom of travel, especially to cover noncap1tal city stories which, giVen the constant need of agencies to file qutckly, allows one of them to leave the cable-head and the other to remam It giVes the agency a greater range and depth of contact w1th the SOCiety. 24

Some problems occur. I have heard stones from Journalists of other agenctes about the unrehabthty, and even muttermgs of mventton, about some local agency Journahsts Others accused thetr nvals of not thoroughly checkmg facts and, occasiOnally, of havmg an axe to gnnd m local pohtics. These accusations were markedly absent when Journalists talked about local Journalists m thetr own agency, however Moreover, a local researcher would no doubt have obtamed even more examples of locals complammg of foreigners' lack of sensitiVIty to local nuances, etc These caveats should not obscure the generally satisfactory relation occurnng Indeed local staff tend to stay a long ttme m agency employment The UPI Smgapore office, for example, has a number of locals all of whom have been there more than twenty years whereas bureau chtef, Joe Galloway, was the novtce havmg only been wtth UPI fifteen years. Gtven the greater turnover rate of Westerners, the local Journalist may provtde contmmty and gam subsequent leverage, sometimes to the pomt where he ts seen as the more mdtspensable member. All four agenctes expend great ttme and money m developmg thetr htgh speed technology. They are contmually updatmg and developmg thetr commumcatton systems, whtch are also used by spectal correspondents m thetr deahngs with thetr home papers. Two examples tllustrate the emphasis on speed. In the 1969 race nots m Kuala Lumpur, Lewts Simons stood on the balcony of the AP office, located m a Chmese butlding, takmg photos, and some noters started firing at htm. He ran mstde, dtved under the desk takmg hts typewnter wtth htm, punched out a few sentences about the attack and put tt on the telex The next day on offictal came round hopmg to have the incident go unreported. But he was twenty-three hours too late. It had been on the world wtre long before he even thought of trying to keep it qmet. In the second example, Leon Daniel, at talks between North Korean and U S. offictals, mistakenly thought the U.S. general had walked out first. After fihng the story, other reporters satd the North Korean general had. Dame! confirmed thts, and dtd a "mandatory ktll" on hts first story twelve mmutes after filing, but not soon enough for some radio newscasts to run the wrong verston. Agencies form the backbone of mternational reportmg, provtdmg the day by day coverage of spot news. As Leon Dame!, As tan edttor of UPI, sees it, they are the mfantry who do the sloggmg work, whtle

25

the special correspondents are the fighter pilots who z1p m on spectacular special missiOns (and get the glory) Because each agency has a range of clients m different countnes who reflect all shades of opmwn, the1r best precautiOn hes m their obJeCtivity In practice, th1s means a "mm1mum of punditry and analysis" (Dame!), and an emphasis on accurate spot news and (excludmg AFP) sourcmg all stones as precisely as posstble Thetr mfluence on Journahsm, especially m Amenca, has been profound. Emery (1962) descnbes the1r role m these terms The development m the twentieth century of two strongly competitive press assoc1atwns, the Associated Press and the Umted Press Internatwnal, guaranteed newspaper editors and readers a better kmd of nattonal and mternatwnal news coverage than the world had ever known - despite acknowledged Imperfections ... Nevertheless they have become one of the common denominators of a standardized JOUrnahsm .... The Press AssociatiOn logotypes- AP, UPI- have become the symbols of trustworthy service from an outside source At the same time the mfluence of the press assoCiatwns upon the character of daily newspapers has become pronounced Thetr usual style of wntmg -summary lead, mverted pyramid structure, Jam-packed factsaffected all newspaper wntmg, to the detnment of ongmal, mdlv!d uahst1c reportmg Despite thetr s1ze and obvwusly strategic role m the mternatwnal flow of news, news agencies have been, until very recently, some of the most mviSlble news orgamzatlons. Increasmgly, however, they are commg under sharp attack, and UNESCO and the group of nonaligned nattons have made moves towards settmg up an alternative news pool (see T1ffen 1976b, Sommav1a 1976). Whatever future developments may occur, news agencies now play and look hkely to contmue to play a central role m the mternatwnal flow of news, mcludmg that from Southeast As1a to Austraha.

Newspaper Correspondents Apart from subscnbmg to one or more agencies, the prmc1pal source of foreign news for a newspaper 1s through employmg 1ts own special correspondent. There are two fulltlme, resident newspaper staff correspondents from Austraha workmg m Southeast Asta. Followmg Mayer's figures (1976) the Austrahan press ts dtvtded mto three 26

ownershtp groups the Melbourne Herald group (54% of datly metropohtan ctrculatwn; thts figure rests on an ownershtp figure contested by the firm, who only allow to a figure ot 51%- Mayer, personal commumcatton), the Murdoch group (24o/o), and the Fatrfax group (22%). The Murdoch group has no Southeast Astan correspondent The Herald group has Bruce Wtlson and the Fatrfax group, through one of tts papers, The Age, has Mtchael Rtchardson Both have been here about four years and both are based m Smgapore They are both responsible for the whole of Southeast Asta from North Vtetnam to Burma to Ttmor Both these groups have fatrly constantly had a Southeast Asian correspondent - although The Age once closed 1ts Smgapore bureau as an economy measure, but reopened tt stx months later by appomtmg Rtchardson (probably losmg more by the dtscontmmty than tt saved). For a few years m the late 1960s, The Herald also had a Jakarta correspondent, who concentrated almost entirely on Indonesia, but dtscontmued the bureau m 1970 In addttton, the Fairfax group has benefited from the mttlat!Ve of Hamtsh McDonald, one ofthe1r Journahsts who came to Jakarta to freelance, and has provided them w1th a steady flow of valuable matenal There are of course a number of foretgn correspondents from other countnes as well, particularly the U.S and Bntam Some of these have more correspondents m As1a than any Austrahan group Le Monde, for example, had four Delhi, Bangkok, Pekmg and Tokyo (The Delhi bureau closed m 1976, after pressure from the Indian Government.) I have mterv1ewed a number of these correspondents for thts study. Some ofthetr work IS syndicated to Australia but their prmc1pal relevance to the ~tudy 1s the added perspective mformat10n from them giVes m 1llummatmg many of the problems and tasks that also face Austrahan papers and correspondents There are some natiOnal vanatwns m the way papers base their correspondents. If a Bnttsh or Amencan paper has only one full time As1an correspondent he IS usually based m Hong Kong. Amencan papers tend to base their Southeast As1an correspondent m Bangkok, whtch 1s partly explamed by the exodus of correspondents from Saigon to there. The Austrahan tendency to base their correspondents m Smgapore IS explamed by the logistical advantages, the htstoncal connections w1th the former British colony and the greater Australian mterest in Indonesia, Malaysia and Smgapore. 27

The fore1gn correspondent has the greatest amount of role ambtgutty of the fore1gn Journaltsts m Southeast As1a and, as a consequence, the greatest freedom m defimng h1s own role and the greatest vanety m what d1fferent JOurnahsts do He has more freedom on what to wnte and when to wnte 1t than w1re serv1ce JOurnaltsts Special correspondents are very Itinerant, many of them spendmg up to half the year travelhng and almost all bemg away for three months of the year. Most of them have almost total d1scretton of where and when to travel They know more about what's happemng than the1r head office and, unless some event has stramed the relattonshtp, are trusted to make the1r own dec1s1ons Some correspondents satd that about lOo/o of thetr Items were suggestions or dtrecttom from head office. The obverse of thts relative autonomy 1s that sometimes some correspondents feel themselves m ltmbo wtthout a clear sense of d1rectton and wtth httle feedback from anyone There ts, today, a general trend to cut back the number of foreign correspondents, especially m As1a. Th1s 1s partly the result of greater cost consctousness by papers m real or 1magmed economic trouble, and partly a JUdgment (possibly self-fulfilhng) that the focus of world mterest post-V1etnam 1s movmg elsewhere -to Europe, the M1ddle East and Afnca The s1ze of th1s trend 1s not yet clear It 1s of course natural that some reorgamzatton of Journahsttc resources take place after the mass1ve concentratiOn on Sa1gon has come to an end. However, 1t does seem clear that any exodus w1ll result m poorer coverage as no satisfactory alternative to the resident correspondent has yet shown 1tself A companson of the three Austrahan newspaper groups shows strongly that the Murdoch group's cover of Southeast As1a 1s markedly mfenor to that of the two groups wtth correspondents here The Murdoch group's only current bureaux are m London and New York Moreover, 1ts papers do not rece1ve the full AAP service It rehes on UPI wtre copy plus syndtcated matenal from Bnttsh and Amencan papers for tts coverage of Southeast Asta. The most presttgtous Murdoch paper, The Australtan, carnes, very roughly, an average of twenty ttems of foretgn news a day but only about one ttem ts from Southeast Asta Thts sparse and dtscontmuous coverage produces odd ommisstons and Items In February 1976, It did not even mentton the ASEAN summit m Bah and an article on leadership changes m Chma was datehned London. It could be argued that the poor coverage is not due to the lack of foretgn correspondents as 28

such but to the lack of mtere