World news or international news or even foreign coverage is the

news media The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public. These include news agencies, print media (newspapers, news magazines), broadcast news (radio and television), an ...

jargon for news from abroad, about a country or a global subject. For

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

, it is a branch that deals with news either sent by

foreign correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locat ...

s or

news agencies A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswi ...

, or – more recently – information that is gathered or researched through distance communication technologies, such as

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into el ...

, satellite TV or the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

. Although in most of the

English-speaking world Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the ''Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest languag ...

this field is not usually regarded as a specific specialization for journalists, it is so in nearly all the world. Particularly in the United States, there is a blurred distinction between world news and "national" news when they include directly the national government or national institutions, such as wars in which the US are involved or summits of multilateral organizations in which the US are a member. At the birth of modern journalism, most news were foreign, as registered by the courants of the 17th century in West and Central Europe, such as the ''Daily Courant'' (England), the ''Nieuwe Tijudinger'' ( Antwerp), the ''Relation'' ( Strasbourg), the ''Avisa Relation oder Zeitung'' (

Wolfenbüttel Wolfenbüttel (; nds, Wulfenbüddel) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District. It is best known as the location of the internationally renowned Herzog August Library and for having the largest ...

) and the ''Courante Uyt Italien, Duytsland & C.'' (

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

). Since these papers were aimed at bankers and merchants, they brought mostly news from other markets, which usually meant other nations. In any case, it is worthy to remark that

nation-state A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may in ...

s were still incipient in 17th-century Europe. From the 19th century on, with newspapers already established in Europe, the United States and a few other countries, innovations in telecommunications such as the

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

made news from abroad easier to be spread. The first news agencies were then founded, like AFP (France),

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

(UK), Wolff (currently DPA, Germany) and the AP (US). War journalism is one of the best known subfields of world news (although war coverage can be national for the media of belligerent countries themselves).

Foreign correspondents

There are essentially two types of reporters who do foreign reporting: the foreign correspondent (full-time reporter employed by a news source) and the special envoy (sent abroad to cover a specific subject, temporarily stationed in a location). The correspondent is a reporter based in a foreign city (often the capital of a country) covering a region, a country or sometimes even an entire continent. He or she regularly files stories to the news editor. He/she gathers materials for these stories from local officials, members of the community, and the local media, as well as from events he/she directly witnesses. Correspondents typically stay in touch with the local community and maintain contacts with other journalists and correspondents in order to identify strategic sources in the government, among diplomats, members of the military and other organizations on the ground who may provide important information. The number of foreign correspondents has dropped significantly over the past 20 years or more. Often, a media company is either uninterested or unable to afford to support a single correspondent, such as in many developing countries. In some places, they cannot obtain visas due to political constraints, or otherwise dangerous conditions prohibit a media company from stationing a reporter there. In recent years, the drop in foreign correspondents has been due to cutbacks within media companies (often, but not always, a result of economics alone

Among English language newspapers, only eight daily newspapers have full-time correspondents in more than ten foreign stations, four from the US, three from the UK and one from India: 35 – ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' (US): Baghdad, Bangkok, Beijing, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kabul, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, London, Manila, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, New Delhi, Paris, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, Toronto, Zurich 24 – ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' (US): Baghdad, Beijing, Beirut, Berlin, Cairo, Caracas, Dakar, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kabul, London, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, Nairobi, New Delhi, Paris, Rome, São Paulo, Shanghai, Tokyo 19 – ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikke ...

'' (UK): Beijing, Berlin, Bombay, Brussels, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Moscow, Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney, Washington 17 – ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

'' (US): Baghdad, Beijing, Berlin, Bogotá, Cairo, Islamabad, Jerusalem, Kabul, London, Mexico City, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi, Paris, Shanghai, Tehran, Tokyo 15 – ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'' (UK): Accra, Bangkok, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Kabul, Islamabad, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, Madrid, New York, Paris, Rome, Tehran, Tokyo 13 – ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' (UK): Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Kabul, Los Angeles, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Shanghai, Sydney, Washington 13 – ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' (US): Baghdad, Beijing, Beirut, Cairo, Islamabad, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kabul, London, Mexico City, Moscow, New Delhi, Seoul 12 – '' The Hindu'' (India): Addis Ababa, Beijing, Colombo, Dhaka, Dubai, Islamabad, Kathmandu, London, Moscow, Paris, Singapore, Washington 1 – News Infoalert When reporters working abroad have no permanent labor contract with media outlets, they are called stringers. Since they have no salary, stringers usually produce material for several different companies at once.

News agencies

A news agency is an organization of

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

s established to supply news reports to news organizations:

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sport ...

s, magazines, and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...

and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service. The bulk of major news agency services contains foreign news. The major news agencies generally prepare hard news stories and feature articles that can be used by other news organizations with little or no modification, and then sell them to other news organizations. They provide these articles in bulk electronically through wire services (originally they used

telegraphy Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

; today they frequently use the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

). Corporations, individuals, analysts and

intelligence agencies An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of informati ...

may also subscribe.

Foreign correspondents

News agencies

See also

Further reading