Foreign Correspondents and the Varieties of Cosmopolitanism

Newsmedia foreign correspondents are among the most celebrated transnational migrants of our times. Drawing on an extensive anthropological multi-sited study of this occupational group, its organisation, background and working conditions, as well as its reporting, this article discusses its relationship to notions of cosmopolitanism—both in terms of the personal orientations and experiences of the practitioners and their contribution to the shaping of informed citizens of the world in their audiences. Variations in correspondent mobility patterns are delineated in terms of a contrast between spiralists and long-timers, and current changes in newsmedia foreign coverage are noted.