| The Diminishing Use of Foreign News Reporting
Author: Edward Seaton
Published: July 01, 1998
Last Updated: August 28, 2002
Printer-friendly version
The
Diminishing Use of Foreign News Reporting
Delivered May 26, 1998,
in Moscow, before the International Press Institute
by Edward Seaton, editor-in-chief,
The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury
1998-99 ASNE President
The use of international
news by mainstream U.S. media has declined
appallingly the last two decades. A survey published last year by Harvard showed
time devoted to international news by network television declined from 45 percent
in the 1970s to 13.5 percent in 1995. That is a 70 percent drop. Three-fourths
of the drop has come since the end of the Cold War. And I am certain, given
the current entertainment meltdown of U.S. network television news, the numbers
are even lower today.
Newspapers, which I know
more about, never gave as large a percentage of their space to international
news, but the decline in the amount they do allocate is even greater than television,
from 10.2 percent in 1971 to
something less than 2 percent today. That's a decline of more than 80
percent.
No U.S. newspaper editor
would disagree with these figures. What might
surprise them, however, is that readers and viewers in other countries
apparently are seeing significant declines as well. Which, of course, is thereason
we are discussing this topic here today. Even the United Nations' human rights
chief has taken on the issue. Marking World Press Freedom Day earlier this month,
Mary Robinson-who speaks here tomorrow-told a conference on press freedom that
the world's media are irresponsibly downplaying international news and reducing
complex issues to sound bites. She expressed fear that this is leading to foreign
policy created in a news vacuum.
There are exceptions to
these trends in the U.S., of course. In reality, what we have there is a two-tier
press. The elite newspapers, like The New York Times, The Washington Post and
The Wall Street Journal, offer wonderful coverage of the world to an elite readership
highly interested in foreign policy. Perhaps 50 other daily newspapers do a
reasonably good job, at least covering the part of the world most connected
to their regions. Two of them are represented on our panel today by their editors.
Then there are the rest of us, 1,550 dailies-many of whose editors seem to believe
readers aren't interested in international news and, apparently, don't have
need for it. Ten inches about mayhem is often their norm.
Most U.S. newspapers today
are driven by the need to keep their
ownerships' stock prices up. If news helps the newspaper's bottom line, it
tends to be the lead story. And local news does that, so local tops every
editor's marching orders. This is not necessarily new thinking or wrong.
We've always known editing is mostly a matter of making the news relevant to
readers' lives.
But today our readers are
more engaged with the world than ever, yet our news columns seldom help them
understand that world. If they read or hear about the world at all, they often
see unconnected disasters that they learn to ignore-with confidence they will
go away-and come to view the world outside the United States as inexplicably
complex and even dangerous.
The situation cries out
for better ideas, information and explanations that
help readers figure out how international forces are affecting and changing
their local communities and their lives.
These are the ideas underlying
the initiative of American Society of
Newspaper Editors that I want to tell you about. My hope is the project will
awaken editors to the realities and opportunities of globalization. To some
extent, we are suggesting a reinvention of the way editors approach international
news. We believe U.S. editors should focus on pragmatic solutions, policies
and real-life models rather than always being led by the White House and the
State Department. They should help people cope with the globalized flow of money,
jobs, technology, arms, culture, travel, communications, consumer goods, health
care, medicine, illegal drugs, and so forth. In a word, localize. While we know
not every important story will have a local connection, we believe if global
links are framed in local terms and readers better understand the evolution
and implications of international forces on their lives, their appetites for
policy news will follow naturally.
I hope, by bringing the
details of our project to you, I can stimulate you to consider, where appropriate,
doing something about this problem in your own countries.
Permit me to describe our
project. With assistance from The Freedom
Forum, we are taking a careful look at how mainstream daily newspapers
can improve international coverage. We will produce a handbook for every U.S.
editor on covering the world and then hold workshops around the United States.
We even plan to offer, as part of the annual ASNE writing awards contest, a
prize for the best writing about the impact of international forces on the writer's
local community.
To provide substance for
the handbook we recently organized two
roundtables of editors and experts. The first focused on why international
news matters. A second explored techniques to improve international news coverage.
So why does international
news in regional and local dailies matter? The
roundtable participants came up with eight reasons:
- The United States is
the world's only super-power. Americans have a leadership position, whether
they like it or not. For Americans to be engaged in the world, there must
be a level of public understanding of world issues.
- In a democracy, foreign
policy is dependent on public support in times of crises, such as war or natural
disaster. International news provides an early warning notice for wars, disasters,
economic trends, etc. Ignorance is very expensive in the long term. An uninformed
public offers opportunities for demagogues and enemies to cause serious harm.
- The world is increasingly
interdependent in areas such as economics, the environment, crime, drug trafficking,
health and immigration. International developments affect Americans' lives
dramatically.
- International travel
and the growth of foreign student exchanges present opportunities to local
papers to explain the world to their readers.
- With the dramatic growth
of immigrant communities in the United States, world news matters more to
local readers. Newspapers can diversify in their marketplace with international
news. It will help them grow and expand.
- Americans need context.
TV doesn't provide it.
- Publishing international
news gives readers a more complete newspaper.
- There are many engaging
stories beyond our borders. And, a lot of them have local and regional angles.
A recent Pew Center poll showed
international news ahead of sports and
national politics. And this was with the narrow definition employed by the center's
highly visible News Interest Index which excludes stories in which the United
States is directly involved. If the U.S. becomes engaged, such as in Somalia or
Iraq, a story is registered as a national story.
In a Pew Center study on
the decline in TV viewership, where the more
generic topic "international affairs" was surveyed, it placed fifth-ahead of
Washington, sports, consumer and entertainment news.
For these reasons, as well
as the eight identified by our roundtable
participants, I believe many editors are missing an important connection to
their readers by down-playing international news. My view was underscored at
our roundtables by recent survey data from USA Today and Knight Ridder, a large
publicly owned newspaper group.
John Simpson, USA Today
deputy editor, reported their recent readership survey showed one of the things
that drives reader loyalty is international news, and one of the major recommendations
they plan to act on is increasing it.
Joyce Davis, Knight Ridder's
deputy foreign editor, said their research
shows their newspapers have gone overboard with local, and it found more than
60 percent of the people polled are highly interested in international news.
Furthermore, she said, people who are dissatisfied with the paper "overwhelmingly"
gave the reason as lack of international news.
Nonetheless, as I have said,
many editors in the United States suffer from
the comfortable illusion that Americans don't care about what's happening overseas.
My belief is that if they don't care, at least in part, it's because they've
been lulled into believing that what happens overseas will have no real impact
on their own lives.
That's why the handbook
we are developing, which is being written by
George Krimsky, whom many of you know as the co-founder of the
International Center for Journalists, will focus on practical techniques of
connecting readers' lives to the world outside our borders.
Here are some of the ideas.
First for the newsroom:
- Develop an inventory
of story sources in your community. This is a list of all the connections
that local companies, organizations, institutions and people have with interests
abroad. Circulate the inventory among the newsroom staff and post it on your
Web site. Invite local people to add their names with their international
connections and to suggest stories.
- Create a list of the
top 10 ways the community is linked to the world, and use it to prioritize
and edit international stories from the wires.
- Create a new newsroom
culture. Assign features that find international connections to the community.
Reward reporters who find the connections with front page coverage. Train
and educate gatekeepers. Train everyone in the newsroom to rethink covering
the world beyond politics, war and natural disasters. Pay premium salaries
to staff members who know foreign languages or who have lived abroad. Give
prizes for outstanding work.
Here are some ideas for stories:
- Economic stories are
very often entry points for covering the world.
- Localize wire stories.
- Package international
stories with maps and graphics.
- Tell the reader why
he or she should care about the story.
- News briefs must have
context and explain why the reader should care. They should either relate
significant stories or be relevant locally.
- Relate world news to
issues back home: jobs, the economy, immigration, trade, the environment.
- Spotlight foreign-owned
businesses, exports, foreign-educated professionals, international students,
residents learning English as a second language, the impact of foreign competition
on local industries, how the world's religions are practiced locally, international
students and experts in international affairs when their countries or subject
areas are in the news, and special hooks, such as women's issues around the
world.
- Send reporters abroad
for short terms to develop stories with local ties.
- Use stringers. The International
Center for Journalists can put you in touch with reliable stringers in many
countries.
- Benefit from models
developed by other newspapers. The Portland Oregonian, for example, highlights
major international stories in full-page feature presentations several times
a week. The material is mostly from the wires, although some government sources
appear. Local connections are made whenever possible. Recent subjects: Ireland,
South Africa, Summit of the Americas, President Clinton's Africa trip, NATO
expansion, the Khmer Rouge.
We also have a number of recommendations
for the wire services, including that they do more stories using the resources
of their international staffs combined with their local and regional staffs, and
that they produce more explanatory stories telling readers why they should care.
We also hope they take on the role of educating the gatekeepers by providing an
informed advisory at least weekly designed to help editors evaluate trends and
developments so they can offer a more logical presentation of world news. The
wires also should make suggestions for localizing.
We believe the Internet
offers to local reporters many of the key resources tapped routinely by foreign
correspondents, including foreign government and corporation handouts and foreign
newspapers, if they are in a language the reporter commands.
We came up with these ideas
for using the Internet:
- Develop a list of useful
Web sites. In general official government sites can be quoted with attribution.
Many are good for factual background. For example, the U.S. Commerce Department
has lists of export licenses by region. Corporate sites both at home and abroad
also are useful.
- We also strongly urge
newspapers to train journalists on how to use the Internet. Several training
resources are available in the United States.
There are many, many more ideas
that will be presented in the handbook.
To conclude, let me say
that we in ASNE believe international news-with its local meanings-is an opportunity
for daily newspapers, and we have a
responsibility to do more with it: To focus on international events and to
explain to our readers in compelling ways how and why those events have an impact
on their lives
|
