In 2018, Taylor Knopf, an award-winning reporter for North Carolina Health News, embarked on reporting on successful harm reduction methods Europeans use to support people who use drugs.
With a vacation already booked, she tacked on a few extra days to do the reporting.
Here are some tips she offers to other journalists who might consider reporting from a foreign country:
- Budget for interpreters. Using interpreters was much more expensive than I anticipated. It can be helpful to learn some key phrases and words before you go. I downloaded a French language app and practiced a couple of minutes a day in the months leading up to the trip.
- Ask for research, reports and papers to read before the trip and get the more of your research done before you leave.
- Have a detailed schedule with times, addresses and people to contact on site. Look them up in advance and get a public transit map. I rented Airbnbs closest to my first stop in each city so that I could find it easily and be on time for my first interview.
- When scheduling an international reporting trip, don’t just send emails. Call people in advance. This helped me form connections with sources in both countries. These calls also allowed me to explain the purpose of my trip, while navigating some of the language barriers.
- Take more photos and video than you need.
Taylor Knopf (@tayknopf) is a health care journalist covering mental health for North Carolina Health News. Earlier this year, she won first place in the Public Health (small) category in AHCJ’s Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism contest for a six-part series, Lessons from Abroad.
