Foreign correspondent

“ Good-will is good business. It [47] is for the Press to unite countries for trade and prosperity and peace.
Governments depend for their views of foreign countries, upon their ambassadors. Ambassadors get to know foreign governments. Foreign correspondents are unofficial ambassadors for the people. The Press can supplement official channels of communication by telling the people of each country not only about the governments but about the peoples. They can get the news and spread it quickly. They can get it to the man in the street. ”

“ But who is to remedy this unfornate susceptibility on the part of foreigners? The foreign employé has his work to do—diplomatic, professional, or commercial; the native is in no particular hurry to court the esteem of outsiders, being quite contented with his own high estimate of himself. Must it always be an officer "on short leave," or a journalist in a hurry, who undertakes to record superficial impressions of a passing spectacle? ”

“ And as all public affairs are like a great network, one linked with another, it is of the first importance that a diplomatist proceeding to a foreign post should be a complete master of recent history both in regard to his own state and in regard to the relations which exist between the country of his new service and all neighbouring countries. ”

“ It is astonishing that with our many international characters—those diplomatical journalists of ours—we did not know what was coming, or no one was at pains to undeceive us. Journalists abroad, even if they are out of touch with Courts and are uninfluential, have yet much greater opportunities for understanding international situations than Foreign Offices. Why is it that they nearly always mislead? ”

“ It does such work in connection with the newspapers as is even too dirty for the German Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from the launching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets against inconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthful foreign correspondents to the frontier. ”

“ The dispatches, notes, and telegrams that pass between a government and its representatives abroad are the generally recognized means of communicating with foreign powers, and are always spoken of as the correspondence with those powers. ”

“ The reports of diplomatic and consular officers in relation to the development of our foreign commerce have furnished many facts that have proved of public interest and have stimulated to practical exertion the enterprise of our people. ”

“ After selecting reliable and trustworthy men to reside at foreign Courts, it will be necessary to appoint subordinates and interpreters, who can be exchanged every three or every five years. Interpreters, indeed, should be selected from each country to which an envoy proceeds—a system which would give us the double advantage of facilitating public business, and of affording us an opportunity to display our amicable desires. ”

“ Upon approval, the said reporter or group shall go through the procedures for visas at a Chinese embassy or consulate abroad or a visa-issuing organ authorized by the Foreign Ministry.
A foreign reporter or journalist group that is to visit China at the invitation of a Chinese organization for short-term news coverage shall apply for visas at a Chinese embassy or consulate abroad or a visa-issuing organ authorized by the Foreign Ministry on presentation of the invitation letter or cable. ”

“ Was he not a wise Minister who named me to a post where bones are better than brains, and a good digestion superior to intellect? I am to be a messenger,—a Foreign Service Messenger is the grand title,—a creature to go over the whole globe with a white leather bag or two, full of mischief or gossip, as it may be, and whose whole care is to consist in keeping his time, and beins never out of health. ”

“ He should not only consult those who have discharged diplomatic duties at the foreign court to which he is about to proceed, but should make it his especial care to keep touch with those who have lived in the country in any quality whatsoever, and to acquire from them all the knowledge which they may possess. ”

“ But if, looking to the best interests of the country, he shall see fit to give their distinguished fellow-citizen the first place in it, they will feel no solicitude as to the manner in which the duties of the office will be discharged. They will feel that "the tools are with him who can use them." Nothing more directly affects the reputation of a country than the character of its diplomatic correspondence and its foreign representatives. ”

“ The leading papers directed their best efforts toward sustaining and improving their foreign service, and Raymond used a brief vacation in Europe to establish for his paper a system of correspondence as trustworthy, if not as inclusive, as that of the Herald or Tribune. If our newspapers today are immeasurably in advance of those of sixty years ago in almost every field of journalism, there is only here and there anything to compare in worth with the foreign correspondence of that time. ”

“ As now situated, our representatives in Japan and China have to depend for interpreters and translators upon natives of those countries who know our language imperfectly, or procure for the occasion the services of employees in foreign business houses or the interpreters to other foreign ministers. ”

“ In other words, I consider it is making an unwarrantable demand to expect that a representative in a foreign land should have a leading influence on the policy of the state to which he is accredited. What may be demanded of a diplomatic representative is a correct estimate of the situation. ”

“ That the correspondence and communications with the Ministers, Consuls, and Agents of the United States in foreign countries, and with the Ministers and other officers of foreign powers with Congress, be carried on through the office of foreign affairs by the said Secretary, who is also empowered to correspond with all other persons from whom he may expect to receive useful information relative to his department ”

“ This has now become a possible way of doing the world's business because of the development of the means of communication and information. The embassy in a foreign country, as a watching, remonstrating, proposing extension of its country of origin, a sort of eye and finger at the heart of the host country, is now clumsy, unnecessary, inefficient, and dangerous. For most routine work, for reports of all sorts, for legal action, and so forth, on behalf of traveling nationals, the consular service is adequate, or can easily be made adequate. ”

“ Proficiency in the technique of foreign trade or consular practice or diplomatic procedure is but a fractional part of the full equipment of American youths aspiring to serve their country's interests abroad either in public or private capacity. ”

“ The signed article is very much in vogue, and most writers and salaried correspondents have at least a cypher or initial by which they are distinguished. The greatest licence prevails in reporting and discussing the affairs of other countries, combined with the keenest sensitiveness to foreign criticism of anything that concerns Germany. The example of the government is followed in advertising the products of German industry, while those of foreigners are studiously depreciated. ”

“ Truth, they say, lies at the bottom of a well: the Foreign Office may be that well, but the eye of the public is not always enabled to pierce its depth. Moreover, we have heard it related that some Ministers indulge a vicious habit of communicating instructions to their diplomatic agents in notes or letters marked private, or evidently meant to be so from their familiar style and tone ”

“ If I have laid stress upon the essentials rather than upon the form and circumstance of diplomatic work, if I have also spoken with candour, both regarding the duties of the minister at home and of his agents in foreign parts, it is because I believe that a knowledge of the truth is the necessary. ”

“ A Foreign Office and a Diplomatic Service are great instruments for preventing, as far as can be prevented, and diminishing, even when you cannot prevent, friction between States which are, or which ought to be, friendly. ”

“ But it is equally obvious that there are occasions when it is of the highest advantage to maintain a more elaborately equipped mission at a foreign court, and even to send two or three diplomatists of higher rank to assist in the conduct of negotiations and in the other activities of diplomacy. ”

“ A diplomat must be in touch with all sources from which he can glean information.
Individual capabilities and zeal will naturally play a great part; but the means that a Government places at the disposition of its foreign missions are also of the highest importance. ”

“ Or, if you send stamps for postage, the Consuls would in most cases forward the newspapers, we think. You can get a list of Consuls from the State Department, Washington, or can find them in the Congressional Directory, which your Member of Congress will gladly send you upon request.
Consuls are always desirous of serving the interests of fellow-Americans in such matters. The spread of English-speaking humanity has led to the founding of English newspapers in many foreign cities. In the Orient there are newspapers printed in English, and they are full of what to us are quaint items. ”

“ Unfortunately, there are always too few of him. He is hampered by having no residents in the British colony that he can consult. The first years of a diplomatist’s life in a foreign country are occupied in learning the lie of the land. ”

“ They are essentially private communications, which British ambassadors are enabled to make with the great statesman who, untiring by night and by day, controls England’s destinies. The messengers carry the ordinary despatches to and fro across Europe in their despatch-boxes, but what is known in the Foreign Office as a “crossed despatch” must be carried on the person of the messenger, and must be delivered into the actual hand of the person to whom it is addressed. ”

“ A foreign news service was developed which in intelligence, fidelity, and general excellence reached the highest standard yet attained in American journalism. A favourite feature was the series of letters from the editor or other member of the staff who travelled and wrote of what he heard or saw. Bowles, Olmsted, Greeley, Bayard Taylor, Bennett, and many others thus observed life and conditions at home or abroad ”

“ The Diplomatist prepares Himself for a Foreign Mission.Now when a diplomatist has been appointed to a foreign post his first care should be to ask for the despatches of his predecessor in order that he may inform himself exactly of the state of affairs with which he will have to deal. ”

“ The undersigned has the honor, through your Majesty's minister of state and chief of the department of foreign affairs, to communicate to you a letter from a very distinguished citizen of the United States, together with copies of a correspondence relating to a subject in which your Majesty, alike distinguished for generous liberality in social and political affairs as a sovereign, as well as an ardent admirer of science and of literature, will doubtless feel a lively interest. ”

“ The foreman in the Tidings ofiice knows he will be called on the carpet for bad positions on foreign ads. and the third offense is capital and decapitable.
THIRD: Recognize the fact that the square foreign agent is a big asset to the country newspaper, cooperate with him in every legitimate way in helping him to get business. If there was no foreign agent there would be no foreign business. He is a creator of business for country papers and should be so regarded. ”

“ When the outbreak of war in Europe sharpened their wits they had the happy thought, among others of like nature, of charging duty on foreign newspapers arriving by mail and of recharging full foreign postage on prepaid letters from abroad that were forwarded from one town to another within the republic, or even within the same state. ”

“ No doubt an ambassador will receive a great deal of information which it is his duty to transmit; but if he is not in a position to test it he will merely pass it on without comment or guarantee of its truth. ”

“ Article 14 A foreign journalist or permanent office of a foreign news agency shall conduct journalistic activities within the scope of business as registered or within that of the mutually agreed plan for news coverage.
Foreign journalists and permanent offices of foreign news agencies must observe journalistic ethics and may not distort facts, fabricate rumours or carry out news coverage by foul means. ”

“ An average of 400 articles per week was sent out to the foreign press. Bureaux of Information were established in the different Allied and neutral countries, which assisted to distribute the material prepared by the Department, and also acted as intelligence centres. A special section dealt with propaganda in enemy countries by means of articles and cables printed in the newspapers of adjacent neutral States, and by aeroplane and balloon distribution on the different fronts. ”

“ The international students’ letter-exchange, which has just been started a few years ago, will be of great benefit—for those who happen to get good correspondents and who themselves are not afraid of taking a little trouble. ”

“ Rings were given, at the public expense, to those who were about to proceed on an embassy to foreign nations, the reason being, I suppose, because men of highest rank among foreign nations were perceived to be thus distinguished. ”