Whither the Foreign Correspondent?

Mashable’s Vadim Lavrusik makes 10 predictions for the news media in 2011. It’s a compelling list anyone who works in TV news should read. No. 6 jumped out at us:

6. The Death of the ‘Foreign Correspondent’

Lavrusik, who is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s journalism school, argues that news organizations will rely “heavily on stringers and, in many cases, social content uploaded by the citizenry.” Of course, we’re seeing that happen already. Over the past few years the U.S. network have either cut back, combined resources, joined with foreign partners or, if they are expanding, networks are doing it by capitalizing on digital technology with one-person operations.

And it’s interesting to note that these predictions come as NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel is in the U.S. filling in for NBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell on her daytime MSNBC show. It’s a holiday fill-in to be sure, and a respite for Engel who’s been NBC’s man in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and beyond going on 9 years. But, what will become of the foreign correspondent in 2011? We’ll take a look next Dec. 30.

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