Networks' International News Coverage At Record Low in 2008

WASHINGTON, Jan 5 (IPS) - Despite two wars involving more than 200,000 U.S. troops and a global economic crisis, foreign-related news coverage by the three major U.S. television networks fell to a record low during 2008, according to the latest annual review of network news coverage by the authoritative Tyndall Report.

Squeezed out by intense coverage of the presidential election campaign and the domestic consequences of skyrocketing oil prices and the subsequent credit crisis, international and overseas events received by far the least attention from the 30-minute evening news programmes of the three networks -- the primary source of national and international news for most U.S. citizens -- of any since the report was first published in 1988.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[RTIII]

If the media actually performed the role of journalism and not merely reporting, maybe they could stem the tide flow to the Internet as a primary source of "news."
.

[peterfromcanada]

You mean Nancy Grace isn't news!?

[Indedave]

If they cut their anchors' and CEOs' salaries by 90 percent they could afford more reporters and bureaus.

[ErnestineBass]

If you haven't yet watched "Orwell Rolls In His Grave", you should.

It's available on NetFlix, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT.

[tomas0808]

That's too bad. I gave up on CNN when they shut off CNN International in the AM from their US channel. The rest is garbage. It is interesting to see all these so called giants of media and finance struggling. Do they need a dictatorship to succeed? it would seem so, they are so greedy and unable to think ahead and evolve. Relegate them to the trash heap of capitalism

[carrieanna]

I don't watch TV to get news...although a bit of local news slips in during ad breaks during primetime. I read bbc.co.uk everyday and have a subscription to Al Jazeera on Youtube. Al Jazeera has the most even-handed reporting I have ever seen.

[tomas0808]

The MSM is not news. Spin, select sound bite, spin, select sound bite, etc etc.

How sick is that, that we have to go to sources outside our own country to get news about our own country?

[ObjectiveRealist]

Mainstream media reports on the "struggles" of the mainstream media, instead of how they are usefully adjusting to the Internet and the accompanying increase in competition. I'll be a lot more interested in articles about how the network and cable news companies are using their budgets to focus on what their budgets uniquely allow them to do, which Joe Anonymous Blogger cannot. Until then I'm happy to see them struggle harder, for less ad and subscription revenue.

[miamia]

Television news is at an all time low.

[ndnndpendent]

I totally agree the quality of U.S. news is in need of serious revamping. I would rather watch coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza than watch those clowns, Blagojevich, Reid, and Burris. The level of seriousness in the news is also at a new low. If we want comedians we can always watch the Colbert report. I don't even see seriousness in the news now, especially given the crisis in Gaza. The U.S. news media is second rate.

[DontJustFollow]

Newspeak is upon us

[DontJustFollow]

Relax, we know what you need to know. It will only bother you for a short while and then you will be calm and peaceful.

[LeeCalif]

They need to be regulated.

Something like 5 corporations control what is fed to us as news.

We can see how well that works with the latest blackout of the atrocities in Gaza. And brittany this & that.

It just does not work.

[DontJustFollow]

We used to watch the news in government class and then discuss. My kids say the LASD won't allow it because it could offend someone.

They are allowed to get commercials on the flat screens in the lunch room though...

[BUTCHER111]

Everyone was covering the Presidential race. But to be fair, many reporters went to Alaska and it is next door to Russia, so that has to be to go towards International Coverage. It"s called the Palin standard of reporting.

[getoffmedz]

International news consumes advertising time.

Greed can make us all stupid, y'all.

[PepsiHooligan]

Yeah it's all a conspiracy from corporations. They've called their puppets and told them to take it easy on international coverage, iPod sales are down.