ABSTRACT
The free flow of information across national borders, cultures and political systems should be a crucial human right in the era of unprecedented globalization and migration, as well as a necessary prerequisite for the exposure of human rights violations perpetrated far from the major media capitals. This chapter traces the history of the major trends in international reporting from the de facto diplomatic role of some Western correspondents and news organizations to the efforts in developing countries to combat perceived media imperialism. It focuses on the role of international reporting as a mediator of meanings across national boundaries, because from that perspective, transformations in journalism inevitably have major repercussions on the human rights of both its public and the public it covers. The chapter discusses changes in international reporting over time up to the embattled present, when foreign news in general media is under sustained attack by crash-strapped publishers, a distrustful and uninterested public and rising levels of unpunished violence.
