media - The demise of the foreign correspondence

Ethan Zuckerman addresses one of the subjects I have been covering in both lectures and articles in 2003, 2004: the demise of the foreign correspondents. My first weblog was actually a notebook of my trips and discussions about the future of foreign correspondence.
My conclusions then were gloomier than the glimmer of hope that shows up in Ethan's piece:

1. The downturn in foreign correspondence is not caused by the economic crisis, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq or even the emergence of the new media. The downward trend already started before halfway the 1990s, and has only been speeded up by recent events.2. The system of foreign correspondence has never been perfect, to put it mildly. But both quality and volume of information about the rest of the world has never been in such a poor state as now, despite the availability of more news through the internet. Too often traditional media have consolidated their resources, cut down on foreign news and features and will do more so as their existence will be under threat from the emerging new media. Foreign correspondents are an easy way to cut down expenses.

More comprehensive reports were published in The Correspondent of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club and the Nieman Reports of Harvard University. The more hopefull online projects I mention in my last piece have since then disappeared or do not really have become an addition to the work of those traditional foreign correspondents.
Some new projects have emerged, like Ethan's Global Voices. But the media crisis has become very acute, in the US, in Europe, but also in China, where print publications are declining and other traditional media never have delivered anyway.
While I see great things happening online, foreign correspondence, foreign desks are certainly on the way out.