Correspondent is the person who, from a foreign country, is responsible for sending current information to a media outlet. The correspondent must cover the news that occurs in the territory where he has been assigned and send the material to the newspaper, radio or TV channel that hired him.
For example: “We are going to contact our correspondent in the Middle East so that he can tell us about the situation”, “An American correspondent in Libya was wounded by troops loyal to the government”, “I worked eight years as a correspondent in Europe and now I drive a international politics morning show.
If an Italian television channel sends a journalist to France to reside permanently in the Gallic country and be in charge of informing the media about local news, it can be said that this reporter is a correspondent for the channel in question in France.
According to abbreviationfinder.org, a correspondent, in short, is the journalist who works in a different city than the one that hired him. Although the concept is usually used to name correspondents who live abroad, you can also be a correspondent for a media outlet in a different city in the same country (a newspaper in Buenos Aires may have a correspondent in Mendoza).
It is important to establish that, on occasions, the term correspondent is often confused with that of special envoy, but it must be made clear that they are different professionals.
Thus, the first, as we have explained, is the journalist who habitually resides in a country other than the one for which he works. On the other hand, the special envoy is the reporter that a television, radio or newspaper sends to another city or nation so that, at a specific moment, they cover an important event that has taken place or is going to take place. Thus, once this event is over or done, he will return to the place where he lives.
In this way, for example, we can say that a journalist who is sent from Spain to Brazil to give information about the World Cup for several days is a special envoy.
A war correspondent is known as someone who is sent to a war zone to report on the fighting. Although war correspondents are expected to have the independence to report on opposing armies, it is common for journalists to end up covering actions under the protection and order of one side due to security or political pressure.
The danger that this media professional faces when covering war conflicts is what means that not all journalists are prepared or trained to be war correspondents. Specifically, it is considered that to carry out this work one must have previously prepared himself physically and psychologically, one must be aware that he will be in danger at all times and that one must be willing to risk his life.
The complexity of this journalistic work has meant that many media professionals who were working as correspondents have died doing their job or have seen how colleagues were shot dead by soldiers.