Only 10 Percent Of Editors Consider Foreign News "Very Essential" To Their Papers

New York Times:

Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study.

The study, by the Pew Research Center and Tyler Marshall, a former foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, is based on a written survey of the top editors at 259 newspapers of all sizes and interviews with a sampling of those editors.

The findings come as no surprise to anyone following the travails of the newspaper industry, racked every few days by new reports of layoffs, falling revenue, credit downgrades, shrinking page counts and declining circulation. But the Pew study appears to be the broadest attempt yet to measure how widespread the changes have been.

Sixty-four percent of the newspapers reported cutting the space given to foreign news over three years, making that the area that has suffered at the most papers as the business contracts. Only 10 percent of the editors said they considered foreign news "very essential" to their papers.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Destin]

Duh, well the only way to get some kind of balance to a persons daily diet of news, is to cross reference stories on foreign news sites. For example, if the NY Times, Le Monde and BBC are all reporting the same thing, but Fox is reporting things differently about the same story, well you can imagine who is telling the lies. ;)

[swift goat pet for truth]

This is why I read FT.

[MacBoy]

I've never seen so many hateful comments in one place.

[CharlieMarlowe]

Yes, and I am ashamed to say that I have been a part of it. But, to reduce the amount of foreign news is the exact opposite of what should be happening. It is frustrating to see actions being taken which are contrary to what should be seen as an obvious good and useful thing and so it stirs up the passions.

[DMcD]

www.watchingamerica.com

[NoSillyName]

You mean there's other countries in the world? Who'da thunk it?!

[innerpeace]

Most newspapers are small town newspapers and they do focus on what is local.For international news one looks to newspapers from big cities and online.

[Killer]

The problem is not lack of interest in foreign affairs, it's logistics. Print media simply cannot compete with the speed of the Internet. Who wants to re-read yesterday's news?

[engineer68]

Perhaps editors should interview the last Miss South Carolina, and they might change their policy on world coverage.

[CologneCitizen]

The size of America is a disadvantage when it comes to news.

On many travels I have experienced, people are first interested what happens around them, which is cool. Then it's issues of the state and after that what happens in DC. Very few show interest or concern about the rest of the planet, maybe because your place is so big,

OR because you are told as soon as you can walk: America is the greatest place on earth. So why bother? When I read, Bush never went abroad before he was president, that tells a lot. And then so many news are tabloid stuff like the cat stuck on a tree. Are we more intelligent? Probably not. Are we better informed? YES !!

[CharlieMarlowe]

USA-We're self-obsessed, so why don't others like us?

Foreign news takes valuable space away from Britney Spears

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Both "Marlowe" and "Cologne" are tellingly accurate. Many "Murkans" are more worried about the polish on their autos than the global climate, the Iraq war, or even who represents them in Congress. For various reasons, they have awarded themselves the intellectual "luxury" of dismissing "IT" as just politics: They can have little or no effect on ANYTHING, and whatever happens, they will adjust to it......

In general "Murkans" know nothing about geography, religion, much less econ. and are all too willing to accept PASSIVELY information--UNVETTED--passed on to them by a neighbour or relative, e.g., "I've heard....that....." Also, there are millions of unattributed, unreviewed, and unvetted "hit pieces" (principally on PLOTS to subvert various aspects of the "Murkan" lifestyle(???)) being "chain-e-mailed" from one zealous-but-lazy mind to another.....

[Destin]

I'm sorry, but I gotta correct you CologneCitizen..... quotes first, links second, in sequential order...

"An interesting account of Bush's 1998 trip is provided in a new book, "Lost Years: Bush, Sharon and Failure in the Middle East," by Mark Matthews, a former diplomatic and Middle East correspondent for the Baltimore Sun.

As described by Matthews, the November trip was arranged by several prominent Republican Jews with close ties to Bush, including Florida developer Mel Sembler and Houston business executive Fred Zeidman. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/09/AR2008010903207.html

"Then I went to Israel. As I declared early, when I got to Israel I was there to listen and learn - and I learned a lot. I learned a lot about the history of Israel and the history of my particular religion and the history of religions that are now the dominant religions of the world." -- GW Bush

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/govbush.html

And once again, can someone tell me what religion Bush belongs to?? Read it for yourself. I'd say, but I'd probably get banned, post removed, or called a german. But I dare anyone to discount Bush's own words. ;)

[marika]

Perhaps we could become like Japan back before the opening up, just cut ourselves off from the outside world and pretend that everyone is like us and if they are not we don't give a damn.

[lvdragonlady]

This is just one more reason to not trust anything in a newspaper, magazine or on MSM.
I, for one, would like to have more information from other countries and the events going on there. BBC is very good at covering news in other countries and maybe the American media should take a clue from them.

[ErnestineBass]

I get most of my international news from the BBC and Reuters on line.

"News", when filtered through the "navel gazing" lens of our own MSM, is nothing more than propaganda.

[itolduso]

The headline SHOULD have read: " Only 10% of Editors Consider ANY news "very essential" to their Papers".

[wm1066]

Go further up, its the neocon corporate raiders that bought out alot of U.S. papers that don't want news to contradict the party line that they shove down our throats.
I stopped buying newspapers in 2004.

[breakfast]

Reading the newspapers had been, for me, a long entrenched habit, almost to the point of necessity. But the force of this habit has been diminishing over recent years and I am now down to only weekend delivery of my local newspaper, and that will end when my current term of subscription expires. I now get most of my news from the internet.

How long will unfettered access to the internet last? We know that the military sees the internet as a battlefield to be dominated, and I can't imagine that many politicians will see any downside to that

[DaOne]

Another reason why I prefer to get real news from sites such as the BBC.

Funny how we are always told about globalisation and how it's a good thing. I guess that's true except for news.

America is doomed to mediocrity when Britney and Angelina are lead stories.

p.s. HuffPo is slowly going down that road too. It was nice while it lasted.

[booksnmore4you]

Great, all we need to make the American electorate even more myopic and dumbed down.