Hampton Stephens is a little short of specifics, but he concludes that people shouldn’t get too worked up over newspapers closing foreign bureaus. There’s plenty of foreign news to be had, thanks to the web.

Here at World Politics Watch, we’re finding that, though many foreign bureaus have vanished, the foreign correspondents haven’t gone anywhere. I’m not just talking about the “eager kid with a laptop and an Arabic phrase book in her backpack,” as Constable somewhat condescendingly put it. Many experienced foreign reporters have embraced the Web as a new outlet for their work, and see in it great promise for providing the new business model that will continue to sustain their careers.

In a job market increasingly made up of so-called “free agents” and characterized by hyper-mobility, the most talented young journalists aren’t willing to log a decade on the metro desk before being sent abroad. They’re already over there, learning about their chosen beat, honing their reporting and writing chops and, yes, publishing their work — on the Web.