For the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film, see Foreign Correspondent (film)

A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign country. The term correspondent refers to the original practice of filing news reports via postal letter.

Reporter vs. correspondent

A correspondent generally includes some of his/her own perspective on the news. For example, a correspondent is expected to provide considerable context to the events being chronicled. A reporter, on the other hand, offers largely fact-based reporting.

In Britain the term 'correspondent' usually refers to someone with a specific specialist area, such as health correspondent. A 'reporter' is usually someone without such expertise who is allocated stories by the newsdesk on any story in the news.

War correspondent

A war correspondent covers stories first-hand from a war zone. It is perhaps the most dangerous form of journalism.

Foreign bureau

A foreign bureau is news bureau set up to support a news gathering operation in a foreign country.

On-the-scene TV news

In TV news, a "live on-the-scene" reporter reports from the field during a "live shot". This became an extremely popular format with the advent of Eyewitness News.

A recent cost-saving measure is for local tv news to dispense with out-of-town reporters and replace them with syndicated correspondents, usually supplied by a centralized news reporting agency. The producers of the show schedule time with the correspondent, who then appears "live" to file a report and chat with the hosts. The reporter will go do a number of similar reports for other stations. Many viewers may be unaware that the reporter does not work directly for the news show.http://www.fsrn.org/fsn.html This is also a popular way to report the weather. For example, AccuWeather doesn't just supply data, they also supply on-air meteorologists from television studios at their headquarters. http://www.ucar.edu/communications/quarterly/winter98/employment.html http://wwwa.accuweather.com/news-on-air-personalities.asp?partner=accuweather&myadc=0&traveler=0

See also

• Stringer (journalism)
• Reporters Without Borders
• Parachute journalism
• Press pool
• Letter from America
• From Our Own Correspondent
• People's correspondent
• John Pory

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