“Today, guidance is more vital than ever. At the extreme, it saves lives. It can mean the difference between insipid insight and getting things dead wrong,” said Mort Rosenblum, reading aloud from his new book Little Bunch of Madmen on international reporting last night. “Trial and error is no way to cover events that help shape the course of a planet.”

“In a changed world, we need new frames of reference,” continued Rosenblum who was flanked by Tom Fenton and Jon Swain, both experienced bureau hands like himself.

The book is in part a tribute to the ‘old gang’ members, but Rosenblum is also dedicated to ‘the new guard’:

Last night’s Frontline Club crowd was suitably full of young faces eager to pick up all they could from this seasoned correspondent who started his reporting career in 1965 and has run AP bureaus in the Congo, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Argentina and France. He was also editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris.

First he had some good news: “It’s never been so easy,” said Rosenblum, before adding that “you just have to be willing to starve to death for a while.”

“It’s not a question of experience, it’s a question of getting it.” Rosenblum continued. Asked if it’s still possible to find work by simply going sonewhere and winging it, the general consensus was affirmative – although Jon Swain advised building a relationship with foreign editors beforehand.

“It’s all a question of your own hustle,” Rosenblum agreed.“Taking a few chances, but not dumb ones.”

The discussion turned to an article written by the Independent’s Patrick Cockburn on the failures of embedded frontline journalism.

Reporters, said Rosenblum, “need the ability to move around the battlefield and just do it”. However,  Swain argued, good reporters “can see through the bullshit”.

The panel was also asked if the agreed with Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger’s recent claim that ‘We must be ready to lose some stories to avoid losing yet more lives.’

The answer was a resounding ‘no’: “The news game is a dangerous business,that’s something we should be prepared to take,” said Swain, who pointed out that in Cambodia, the casualties had been much higher:

“We lost 11 in one day,” he said, adding that the story was always considered more important, the risk an accepted fact.

Discussing the internet and social media, Fenton made the point that they give the impression that there is more news, when in fact there are fewer journalists in the field producing less high-quality journalism. “It’s good to have a news flash, but you’ve got to have boots on the ground,” he said.

Picking out the young faces in the crowd, Fenton said: “If I were your age, I’d go for it. There’ll be a need for you. There is a need for information. The basic craft is something we really can’t do without.”

“Handing in a story. That’s the fucking Pulitzer for me,” said Rosenblum to murmurs of agreement from the master craftsmen on both sides.

“A rare blend of great storytelling and pure wisdom, Little Bunch of Madmen: Elements of Global Reporting is the best thing yet written about the state of modern journalism by one of its few true living masters, and every reporter working today should go out and buy it and read it.”
— Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer, The New Yorker

Since 1965 Mort Rosenblum has covered war and peace on seven continents: civil strife, velvet revolution, climate chaos, and everything in between. As Associated Press special correspondent, he’s been shot at, locked up, lied to and shaken down. He ran AP bureaus in the Congo, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Argentina, and France. As editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris, Rosenblum dispatched correspondents and decided what made news. Now, in vivid detail, he explains what he learned the hard way in this gem of a guide to global reporting.

“This is the manual I wish I’d had back in the 1960s when I was dropped into the Congolese mayhem, clueless, sleepless, and scared witless,” Rosenblum writes. “It’s also the primer I wish people backhome could have had at hand to understand what they were reading and watching.”

Rosenblum will be joining us to look back on the last forty years that form the lessons and stories of Little Bunch of Madmen.  He will be joined on stage by celebrated foreign correspondent Jon Swain, the discussion will be chaired by author and broadcaster Tom Fenton. If you are a young aspiring journalist this is an event and a book not to be missed.

This event is part of our monthly On the Media series, produced in association with the BBC College of Journalism.