Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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A note from the president
This is a story about foreign affairs. Bored yet?
So begins a recent front-page profile. The lede should not have surprised
me in today’s environment where, if it bleeds to the newspaper’s bottom
line, it leads. Local does that, and "local, local, local" tops every editor’s
marching orders. News space devoted to international news has steadily
declined since the 1970s, precipitously since the end of the Cold War.
We are not wrong to think this way. 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. Our
news columns unfortunately 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. In a phrase, a local
explanation.
These ideas underlie ASNE’s initiative to improve international news
coverage in daily newspapers. With assistance from The Freedom Forum, our
aim is to take a careful look at how daily newspapers are using international
news. We will produce a handbook for editors on covering the world and
hold several regional workshops.
To provide substance for the handbook, we organized two roundtables
of editors and experts. The first focused on why international news matters.
A second, which I plan to discuss in a future column, explored techniques
to improve international news coverage by showing the local implications
of global developments, using the Internet, asking the wires for assistance
and implementing other helpful ideas.
So why does international news in regional and local dailies matter?
The roundtable participants came up with eight reasons:
1. The United States is the world’s only superpower. 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.
2. 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. The
press plays a corrective role to counter misinformation and it has an obligation
to cover important stories. Ignorance is very expensive in the long term.
An uninformed public offers opportunities for demagogues and enemies to
cause serious harm.
3. The world is increasingly interdependent in areas such as economics,
the environment, crime, drug trafficking, health and immigration. International
developments affect Americans’ lives dramatically.
4. International travel and the growth of foreign student exchanges
present opportunities to local papers to explain the world to their readers.
5. With the growth of immigrant communities, world news matters more
to local readers. Newspapers can diversify in the marketplace with international
stories.
6. Americans need context. TV can’t do it.
7. Publishing international news gives readers a more complete newspaper.
8. There are many engaging stories beyond our borders. A lot of them
have local and regional angles.
A recent Pew Center poll showed that readers are more interested in
international news than in sports or national politics. And this was with
the narrow definition employed by the center’s 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 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. My view was underscored at the roundtable by recent survey
data from USA Today and Knight Ridder.
John Simpson, USA Today deputy editor, reported its 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 the company’s
research shows its newspapers have gone overboard with local. More than
60 percent of those 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.
Bored anymore?
Seaton, ASNE president, is editor-in-chief of The Manhattan (Kan.)
Mercury.
