Global journalism is a framework that emphasizes ways of reporting the news that move beyond the simple dichotomy of “domestic” and “foreign” coverage. As globalization processes have blurred boundaries and connected distant places and people, news stories related to issues such as climate change, migration, pandemics, or international economic inequalities often imply – or, from a normative perspective, should increasingly imply – an international or global outlook.
Swedish media scholar Peter Berglez describes global journalism as a news style that portrays relations between (geographically distant) places, peoples, and their actions, paying tribute to the complexities of globalization and reconnecting events and processes that are considered separate in “conventional” foreign reporting. According to Berglez, a global outlook focuses on commonalities and interrelations between practices, processes, and problems in different parts of the world. News stories that fall into this category therefore focus on processes and practices that occur simultaneously in separate places worldwide, reflect the complex interplay of domestic, foreign, and global powers, and represent identities across national and continental borders. In this understanding, “global journalism” comes close to glocalization, i.e., an understanding of globalization as not mere internationalization, but rather a complex interplay between international and local/national events and processes. Further, global journalism may be seen as a concept closely connected to visions of a “global public sphere” that connects well-informed citizens of the world rather than serving only national audiences.
While several studies have found evidence of an increasingly “global” journalism, others demonstrate that domestic/foreign categories remain firmly embedded in news reporting. The research also challenges the importance of (geographical, cultural and political) proximity for foreign reporting and instead highlights the ongoing importance of opportunities to “domesticate” news stories. Moreover, most news media continue to target national audiences, and are bound to logics inherent to national media systems, further complicating more transnational ways of covering the news and truly globalizing media. Expectations that journalism will fully embrace a “global” approach have thus been considered unrealistic. However, if one considers global journalism as a news style that enriches, rather than substitutes for, “conventional” foreign coverage, it may be considered a valuable concept addressing some of the shortcomings related to reporting international news, such as ethnocentrism, bias and stereotypes or unequal global news flows. In this sense, “global journalism” and “foreign reporting” are not opposites, but complementary approaches.
Cross-border collaboration of journalists or promoting cosmopolitan views amongst journalists may be ways of facilitating global journalism. Also, collaborative investigative journalism projects such as the Panama Papers or Paradise Papers, addressing issues such as global tax evasion and corruption, may be seen as a form of reporting that transcends “national” categories.
