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Diplomatic Reporting

Information is the lifeblood of the diplomatic services with diplomats, like veins and arteries, reporting from their posts back to their home countries. These diplomatic reports, or cables, as they are more commonly known, keep information flowing; they help co-ordinate activities and prepare the groundwork for decisions.

While reporting remains an intellectual activity requiring good judgment, good cognitive skills, and a good writing style, it, too, has been affected by the Internet. What should be reported? How should diplomats integrate into their cables what has already been published by journalists, bloggers, and other providers of information? What value do diplomatic reports add to the already available information and analysis provided by Wikipedia and blogs, among others? What is the usability of the new generation of artificial intelligence tools for summarising texts?

This portal explores the function of diplomatic reporting and the impact of technology on this important function.

What is diplomatic reporting?

Thousands of reports are written every day: they record meetings, analyse situations, and suggest actions. Since the ancient Egyptian Tal-Amarna diplomacy right up until the present day, diplomatic reports have been at the heart of diplomacy. They very often determine the internal chemistry of diplomatic services. Diplomats try to establish their positions and gain peer-recognition through the quality of their reports.

One way to look at diplomatic reporting is to consider it as one facet of a broader and more general phenomenon - the flow of information. Transmission of information is a basic human activity that in one form or another takes place all the time and under multiple circumstances. It is a product of instinct combined with need. Like any other method of information flow diplomatic reporting needs to have its own recognisable structure. It has to emerge from a clearly defined context. It needs direction and purpose. It should avail itself of whatever means of communication are currently available.

Thousands of reports are written every day: they record meetings, analyse situations, and suggest actions. Since the ancient Egyptian Tal-Amarna diplomacy right up until the present day, diplomatic reports have been at the heart of diplomacy. They very often determine the internal chemistry of diplomatic services. Diplomats try to establish their positions and gain peer-recognition through the quality of their reports.

One way to look at diplomatic reporting is to consider it as one facet of a broader and more general phenomenon - the flow of information. Transmission of information is a basic human activity that in one form or another takes place all the time and under multiple circumstances. It is a product of instinct combined with need. Like any other method of information flow diplomatic reporting needs to have its own recognisable structure. It has to emerge from a clearly defined context. It needs direction and purpose. It should avail itself of whatever means of communication are currently available.

   

Two contrasting aspects characterise the flow of information in whatever form it is conducted. On the one hand once information exists there is both the need as well as the natural tendency for it to flow outwards. One may put this in another way. Information cannot exist in isolation. There is the need for a human recipient, as much as a human conveyor, for facts and events to become information. The underlying thrust is therefore towards all type of reporting, including diplomatic reporting, to become open and unrestrained.

The question is the extent to which there are limits to this openness, and furthermore who decides on these limits. This leads to another, and contradictory, aspect of the issue of information flow. Information is a form of power. Withholding information is a means for one individual or a group of individuals to exercise control over others.

On the whole, technology has been on the side of the moves towards freer flow of information, though it has occasionally also been used for the opposite purposes. The major breakthrough came with the invention of printing. One could go back even further, to the invention of writing.  The latest breakthrough is represented by the internet. It is useful to put the Internet phenomenon in this historical context. In the way it is evolving, Internet forms part of the age-long contest pointing towards a freer and more open flow of information.

Excerpt from Diplomatic Reporting in the Internet Era, a paper by Ambassador Victor Camilleri.

Expand

From our blog

The medium and how it can colour the message

Mary   26 Jul 2013   Diplomacy

YouTube videos and TV footage, whether captured by professionals or what are now known as ‘citizen journalists’, portray what the documentarist sees, i.e. the action that is unfolding in front of them.

0 comments

The relationship between diplomats and diplomatic correspondents

Mary   08 Jul 2013   Diplomacy

A network of friendships and mutual dependencies draws diplomats and correspondents into an elite community of foreign affairs specialists (Phillips Davidson, 1975).

0 comments

How has social media affected diplomatic reporting?

Mary   03 Jul 2013   Diplomacy

Social media has taken the world by storm. Citizen journalists are increasing pressure on diplomats to deliver timely and accurate reporting of what is happening on the ground. A recent survey of 105 practising diplomats from five regions: Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia shows that the biggest impact social media has in terms of diplomatic reporting is making it more immediate and less formal.

0 comments
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Training and courses

Diplomatic Theory and Practice
Starting 22 February 2021
E-Diplomacy
Starting 10 May 2021

Events

Diplomatic reporting in the Internet era

15 May 2014 - 16 May 2014  | WMO, 7bis, Avenue de la Paix, Geneva

Diplomatic reporting in the Internet era after WikiLeaks

9 February 2011  | Geneva / online (live webinar)

WikiLeaks and the Future of Diplomacy

11 January 2011  | GCSP, Geneva

Books and publications

21st Century Diplomacy: A Practitioner’s Guide
Kishan S. Rana

Resources

Feedback in Diplomatic Reporting

What's next?

Join us for the various events related to data diplomacy, and get in touch with us:

  • Enrol for Diplo’s E-diplomacy online course
  • Learn more about Diplo’s Data Diplomacy research project, in collaboration with the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • Join the online discussion on e-diplomacy; connect with bloggers and share your ideas and experiences
  • Subscribe to DiploNews, Diplo’s bi-monthly e-newsletter

Join us for the various events related to data diplomacy, and get in touch with us:

  • Enrol for Diplo’s E-diplomacy online course
  • Learn more about Diplo’s Data Diplomacy research project, in collaboration with the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • Join the online discussion on e-diplomacy; connect with bloggers and share your ideas and experiences
  • Subscribe to DiploNews, Diplo’s bi-monthly e-newsletter

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