Barry Petersen On The New Calculus For Foreign Correspondents

(CBS)

Stelter asked Petersen, "What is the state of foreign corresponding on network news, as you see it?"

"Better and worse," Petersen replied. He explained:

In the 'old' days the networks were much more aggressive about covering foreign news in areas like plane crashes, coups, floods. I consider this the 'worse' time. We chased around a lot doing stories that smelled like news but were not very relevant to either American policy or the lives or normal Americans.

Now the bar is higher. To get a foreign story on the air it needs to be interesting or relevant or compelling. We still cover some huge, breaking news stories such as the Asian tsunami.

But to get enterprise pieces on, especially from Asia, the stories must be that much more interesting. The CBS Evening News just did a series on caring for the aged, and we did one of the pieces. It was about a program in a southern Chinese city where people volunteered their time working with the very elderly, tracked how many hours they worked, and someday will get those hours back when they are in need of care.

That story also gave us a chance to show that China, like America, is a changing society. Families once took care of the elderly, but now younger people are moving away for better jobs and, more and more, the elderly must fend for themselves. This in a country with no real safety net for old people. That was what family was for.

So we really did two stories -- first about an interesting program of people helping people, and second about how China's culture and traditions are changing as its economy expands.

So these are the BETTER but TOUGHER times for a foreign correspondent: our stories must be far more layered, far better produced from concept to shooting to editing, and that is the challenge of reporting from overseas. You can't make a career as a foreign correspondent anymore just doing 1:30 on the latest plane crash.