Dateline: The Philippines, February, 1986. Corazon Aquino, an ingenuous political neophyte, has just overthrown the long-standing dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. The Filipino people jubilantly throng the streets in celebration. Mobs push through the barricades and rush onto the grounds of the vacated Malacanang Palace in Manila. On hand to bring the story to America is ”our man in Manila.”
This time, however, the ”man” was June Kronholz, 39, one of a new breed of women infiltrating the world of the foreign correspondent. (”I`m the bureau chief, the correspondent, everything rolled into one in Southeast Asia,” says Kronholz from her Wall Street Journal office in Hong Kong). At the Marcos palace she was swept with the crowd from room to room, gaping with them at the ostentatiousness of the former president and his wife. Everywhere Kronholz noted signs of hurried departure–a half-eaten meal on the table, clothing on the floor, papers strewn about. She didn`t get to stay long, however. The Wall Street Journal was waiting for her perspective on the event, so she returned to the hotel to file her story.
For decades the world of foreign correspondents, portrayed in mysteries and thrillers as a life of intrigue, danger and exoticism, was essentially closed to women. The one great exception was intrepid photographer Margaret Bourke-White, famous for her graphic depictions of battle in World War II. Most foreign correspondents and photographers, however, were men who seemed to thrive on danger. It was deemed an unsuitable job for a woman.
So unsuitable that even a photojournalist of Bourke-White`s talent constantly had to defend her career choice. ”Usually I object when someone makes overmuch of men`s work versus women`s work,” Bourke-White said in her book ”Portrait of Myself.” ”For I think it is the excellence of the results which counts.”
Since Bourke-White`s time, and especially in the past two decades, more women have shown that they can produce excellent results and that they are up to the demands and risks of covering everything from a guerrilla war in Central America to racial tensions in South Africa. All of the major news organizations now have female reporters posted abroad.
(Among them: for the New York Times, Shirley Christian in Buenos Aires, Barbara Crossette in Bangkok and Susan Chira in Tokyo; for the Los Angeles Times, Marjorie Miller in El Salvador; for the Christian Science Monitor, Elizabeth Pond in Bonn, Mary Curtius in the Mideast, Clara Germani in South America; for UPI, Peggy Polk and Paula Butturini in Rome, Tracy Wilkinson in Nicaragua, Anna Christensen in Moscow, Jane MacArtney in Peking, Laurie Watson in Ottawa, and Marie Okabe in Tokyo; and for AP, Jennifer Parmolee in Rome, Allison Smale in Vienna, Susan Linnee in Madrid, Victoria Graham in Dehli, Sally Jacobson in Mexico City, and Edie Lederer in London.)
While modern transportation and sophisticated communication systems have eliminated some of the isolation and travel problems of foreign
correspondents, one rule remains: It takes more than the usual journalistic pluck to be posted overseas. The first thing one learns when talking to female foreign correspondents, in fact, is the vast discrepancy between how their profession is perceived and what it`s really like. There is a psychological price. The women often have little personal life, are isolated from family and friends and may live or travel under rough conditions.
”People in the States think that being a foreign correspondent sounds sexy,” says Sheila Rule, 36, the New York Times`s bureau chief in Nairobi, Kenya. ”They say, ”What I wouldn`t give to do all the things you do.` And I know what they mean.” At the same time, she says, they don`t realize the unglamorous side of the business. ”Sometimes you go to the country for a month, and that means many lonely nights in a hotel room. You bring three or four books, but you go through them and then find you have to stay longer. You can`t read the newspaper; there are no bookstores. So you end up rereading the books you just finished.”
”It can be a very lonely job,” echoes Bryna Brennan, 36, an Associated Press reporter based in El Salvador. But for her the isolation is secondary.
”In a place like El Salvador the story is consuming. And that`s what I wanted.”
Which leads to the heart of what makes foreign correspondents foreign correspondents. The truth is that most correspondents, care little about where they live or how they live, so long as they can get the story and a byline.
”I was in Lagos, Nigeria, covering the elections when Moammar Gadhafi started rattling his saber again on the Libyan border with Chad,” Kronholz recalls of an African assignment in 1983. ”This time it seemed serious, because the French were flying in troops.”
Sensing a big story, she set off with two other reporters, one from Time Magazine and the other from the Los Angeles Times. ”We had to take two planes to get to the Cameroon-Nigeria border. Then we rented a bush taxi to get across the Cameroon strip. At the bank of the Chari River we hired a dugout canoe. On the other side we were met by porters who put our suitcases and typewriters on their heads and walked us into town.” The only hotel in the capital had been demolished in earlier fighting. Undaunted, Kronholz and her colleagues found some cots and lived in the rubble for a week while they got the story.
Kronholz`s experience in Chad demonstrates a maxim of the business:
Getting to the story may be more difficult than actually getting the story. Transportation in many Third World countries is often primitive and accommodations nonexistent. Government restrictions on travel may hamstring the effort entirely.
And the violence can be all too real. Often it`s the incidents that make being a correspondent so thrilling that also make the profession such a hazard. During a disturbance in a township near Johannesburg, South Africa, Rule, along with another black journalist, tried to get a firsthand view.
”Officials were keeping everyone out. We tried to turn around when we saw the roadblock, but two soldiers jumped out of the bushes with guns and forced us to go to the roadblock. There they tried to search us.” Rule challenged the search. ”They were shocked at having a black woman talk back to them.”
An argument ensued and threatened to turn violent until the soldiers realized they had stopped American journalists. ”Their mouths dropped open, and they just said, `Git, git.` ” Rule found another way into town.
Like the other women correspondents, Kronholz downplays the risks of her job. Nor has she found much prejudice against women in her job. But she does remember a time when being a woman had a most startling effect. ”When I worked in Africa, the people were surprised to see me driving along the bush in a jeep. There aren`t many white women traveling alone there.”
For Rule there`s an added twist. She gets more respect working in Africa, she has discovered, when people think she`s married. So despite being divorced, she wears a diamond ring and wedding band.
Balanced against the drawbacks are the rewards, not the least of them financial. A correspondent with the New York Times makes at least $60,000.
What`s more, many correspondents revel in the degree of freedom that comes with the territory. They are usually thousands of miles away from their bosses, with no one looking over their shoulder. ”I talk with my boss (in New York City) sometimes once a week, other times once a month. It varies depending on the story,” says Rule,
”Most foreign correspondents are doing exactly what they want to do. They aren`t doing it to move up the ladder and get back to the States,” says Brennan. ”Let`s face it. It`s the best job in journalism.”
