How to work as a freelance foreign correspondent

I’m writing this piece in light of the many requests I receive for advice on how to work as a freelance foreign correspondent, particularly in the Middle East, and the realities of working in a perversely unstable and stressful yet rewarding career. It is partly culled from advice I have given to those who have approached me, from my social media posts on freelance journalism, and from my own mulling over of advice other wiser, more experienced correspondents have given me.

I hope it will prove useful for anyone thinking about taking a similar route. I focus on the Middle East as it’s the region in which I have experience, albeit a very limited amount. This advice might apply to other parts of the world, too, but I cannot write on the realities for journalists covering them.

At the bottom of this article, I’ve included links to resources I have found invaluable while planning stories and assignments, on insurance, risk assessments, culture and language, and news alerts. I hope others find them as useful as I have.

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As a brief bit of background, I left my staff job as a desk journalist on a national newspaper in London in March 2016. I had been interested in the Middle East since visiting Syria in early 2011 and spending a couple of months in Morocco during my undergraduate degree in 2012. I wanted to do more field reporting than my newspaper job allowed. I packed up my desk, sought advice from compassionate, more experienced foreign correspondents…