This analysis of more than 1,700 years of work by AP foreign correspondents has documented their practices, as well as the array of constraints on them, to shed new light on the essence and impact of the bulk of foreign news content reaching the American public through eight decades of U.S. dominance in world affairs. The history of how and why correspondents wrote the stories that brought the world home – derived not only from the correspondents’ candid and vivid descriptions, but by a few hundred of the stories themselves – provides the missing link in the understanding of the impact of foreign news on international relations. On the premise that journalistic content affects both public opinion and the range of policymaking options by building a certain set of images of foreign realities, the previous chapters have taken us, for the first time, on an unfiltered tour inside the construction site.

Much like the correspondents’ reporting objective, the goal in telling their stories – in their own voices – is to understand not only what they do, and therefore the news that they produce, but also what the future might hold for both the profession and the content. To quote Kathy Gannon (23), “the more knowledge we have, the better our questions … knowing what questions to ask is much more important than thinking you have all the answers” – and that applies just as well to scholarship as to interviewing Afghan villagers or Pakistani leaders. In this final chapter, then, the knowledge gained through the history of coverage of the world by The Associated Press informs questions about the possible future of foreign correspondence.

The timing for such query could not be more urgent. In the mid-2010s, a dangerous temptation for disengagement is spreading in both American foreign policymaking and journalism. The partial image of a world where power is diffused and fragmented, and information flows through connected social media citizens, can too easily become the convenient, and cheap, excuse for policy vacillation and media retrenchment. But the more we withdraw, the less we know; the more we ignore, the less we understand; and that lack of comprehension is bound to have devastating consequences when real events – land grabs, beheadings, environmental disasters, all impervious to our indecision – ultimately force policymakers, journalists, and citizens to engage.