Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting.

• Author: Canning, Michael
• Position: Book review

Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting

Review by Michael Canning

John Maxwell Hamilton, Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2009, ISBN13: 978-0-8071-3474-0, 680 pp. $45.00

Journalism's Roving Eye is subtitled "A History of American Foreign Reporting," and it proves an ambitious effort in a surprisingly little plowed field. The history of what the author John Maxwell Hamilton also calls "foreign correspondence", i.e., U.S. media's coverage involving overseas reporters, is a thin one, with only three broad historical surveys before Hamilton's effort, and none of them as comprehensive.

His study is basically chronological, beginning with the earliest such reporting in the 18th and early 19th centuries, when stories on foreign events were merely reprints from European journals. Things speeded up a bit when the New York Herald sent a reporter to ride out to meet boats coming in from Europe to gain the latest scuttlebutt. The first American war correspondent was likely with the New Orleans Picayune covering the Mexican War in situ, and, after the laying of the first transatlantic cable in 1858, the first permanently based overseas bureau chief (in London) was George Washburn Smalley for the New York Tribune.

The real breakthrough for American overseas coverage comes with war, in this instance the Spanish American War, when major outlets began to seriously compete with on-the-ground reporting. A surprise for this reader comes from learning of the significance of Chicago newspapers in this sphere, especially the Chicago Daily News, whose owner, Victor Lawson, "virtually invented the ideal of high-quality American newspaper foreign services." Lawson was seen as having the best foreign news coverage in the world, an expertise amplified by the First World War. He eventually had a sturdy rival, too, in the Chicago Tribune, which competed with the Daily News for scoops and talent.

Hamilton highlights the period between the World Wars, calling this the "Golden Age" of the foreign correspondent. Contributing to this Golden Age was the fact that the United States had not been drawn directly into the great conflicts of the period and was still seen as mainly a benign presence. In addition, there were urgent and grand issues at stake at the time and--not least--a very strong dollar that allowed media outlets to cover costs for expensive foreign...