Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting (From Our Own Correspondent)

In all of journalism, nowhere are the stakes higher than in foreign news-gathering. In Journalism’s Roving Eye, John Maxwell Hamilton―a historian and former foreign correspondent―provides a sweeping and definitive history of American foreign news reporting from its inception to the present day and chronicles the economic and technological advances that have influenced overseas coverage, as well as the cavalcade of colorful personalities who shaped readers’ perceptions of the world across two centuries.

From the colonial era―when newspaper printers hustled down to wharfs to collect mail and periodicals from incoming ships―to the ongoing multimedia press coverage of the Iraq War, Hamilton explores journalism’s constant―and not always successful―efforts at “dishing the foreign news”. He details the highly partisan coverage of the French Revolution, the early emergence of “special correspondents” and the challenges of organizing their efforts, the profound impact of the non-yellow press in the run-up to the Spanish-American War, the increasingly sophisticated machinery of propaganda and censorship that surfaced during World War I, and the “golden age” of foreign correspondence during the interwar period, when outlets for foreign news swelled and a large number of experienced, independent journalists circled the globe. From the Nazis’ intimidation of reporters to the ways in which American popular opinion shaped coverage of Communist revolution and the Vietnam War, Hamilton covers every aspect of delivering foreign news to American doorsteps. Journalism’s Roving Eye offers a keen understanding of the vicissitudes in foreign news, an understanding imperative to better seeing what lies ahead.