This is an excellent oped in the New York Times on the importance of reporting from the field and 'being there'. To go where the story is. Sounds simple but as violence, chaos and kidnappings become increasingly common in places where reporters must go, the risks are high. The writer argues that reporters have to be there and working from fortresses can come at a high price.

“the occasional price of a noble but risky profession” — struck rather close to home. It is a calculus familiar to the tribe of foreign correspondents who work, as Bobby Worth often does, in places that can blow up in your face. If diplomats are withdrawing behind blast walls and armed escorts, and if that is costing us some useful understanding of the world, is the same thing happening to those who cover the news, and with what consequences?

"Like the truly committed diplomat, the truly committed foreign correspondent is something of an endangered species. News organizations began their retreat from the world long ago, driven by economics and a wrongheaded belief that Americans don’t care that much about foreign news. The American Journalism Review, which began charting the decline of foreign reporting in 1998 (that first article was entitled “Goodbye, World”), reported two years ago that 18 American newspapers and two entire newspaper chains had closed every one of their overseas bureaus. Other news outlets, including most TV networks, have downsized or abandoned full-time bureaus in favor of reporters or anchors who parachute in when there’s a crisis. They give us spurts of coverage when an Arab Spring breaks out or Hamas fires rockets into Israel, but much less of the ongoing attention that would equip us to see crises coming and understand them when they erupt."

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An article in The Economist finally delivers positive news about the newspaper industry after several years of terrible news. The Newspaper industry has taken a real fall the past few years and the process of digitization has been tough for many - those who survived were the innovators. Many didn't make it.

"Things have started to look a bit less grim, particularly in America. Revenues from advertising are still falling, but those from circulation have at last started to stabilise. At some papers, such as the New York Times, circulation revenues this year are forecast to offset the decline in advertising for the first time in at least five years."

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