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WEEK ONE, THURSDAY The Motto on Foreign News Coverage: Through a Lens Darkly and Infrequently By: Peter Grier, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Dateline: WASHINGTON YOU can learn a lot about Michael Jackson's troubled marriage from the US media. But you won't find much about politics in Mali, or the price of tortilla flour in Mexico. International affairs remains an afterthought in many American newsrooms, despite trends in technology and trade that are tying the nations of the world closer together. The foreign news that does appear often centers on combat or deployment of US troops - and seldom mentions social, cultural, or scientific issues. For many Americans "the diet of international news offered cannot be adequate to relate the world to the United States and the world's potential importance to their lives," concludes Brookings Institution media scholar Stephen Hess in an in-depth new study of foreign news and foreign correspondents. Quantity - or rather lack of it - is the first foreign news problem. Numerous studies have shown that over the last 20 years the amount of international news broadcast on evening TV network news varies between 20 to 40 percent of each show. This figure seems solid, if not spectacular. But it overstates the case, according to Dr. Hess, as about half of all stories counted "foreign affairs" are in fact about US foreign policy, or the actions of US citizens overseas. The incredible shrinking foreign 'news hole' Newspapers do somewhat better - particularly the few dedicated metropolitan dailies that still maintain staff writers in foreign cities. But most Americans don't live in New York or Washington, and the average mid-sized city paper does about the same as network anchors to educate citizens about the globe. Mid-circulation newspapers use an average of 4.5 foreign datelines each day, according to a Hess survey. The New York Times, by contrast, uses 11. Perhaps more problematic than the number of stories is the decline in the number of correspondents themselves. Over the past decade, the three major networks cut their overseas staff in half. The number of Time magazine's foreign correspondents declined by a third, while an entire wire service, United Press International, dwindled to a shadow of its former self. All told, US media now employ about 1,500 foreign correspondents - about the number of people that work in one wing of a large metro shopping mall. Yet it isn't quantity that Stephen Hess feels is the real problem with US media and international news. "I call it a quality problem - certainly as far as the TV networks go," he says in an interview. Despite the rise of CNN and other cable news sources, network TV news remains Americans' primary source of information about the world. And what viewers see on network TV are primarily bombs and bullets: brief, intense images of violence in far-away lands. More than half of all TV foreign news subjects are related to violence, either via combat or disaster, or accident or repression, according to Hess. Such a focus on the spectacular distorts the very map of the world. The Middle East, for instance, accounts for 5 percent of the world's population, but gets 35 percent of foreign dateline stories. Indeed, one-tenth of the world's nations accounts for 80 percent of the foreign news broadcast in the US. Whole regions can go years without a mention by Dan Rather. Even when combat isn't the subject, stories can be stereotyped by nation. Thus TV reports about Japan invariably focus on economics. "If you watched everything, the only country I think you would really know much about would be Russia," says Hess. About 17 percent of network foreign stories focus on Russia, and the coverage includes discussion of culture, environment, the press, and other subjects. The second-most covered nation is Israel, with about 10 percent of stories. In contrast with Russian stories, datelines from Israel "are virtually all violence," says Hess. Many news executives like to find a domestic link in foreign events. Bill Wheatley, NBC's vice president for news, says the network is most interested in foreign stories that have an "American connection, because we serve an American audience. So, foreign news that affects America is in demand," he says. NBC drastically cut back its foreign coverage in the late 1980s and early '90s, but is now looking for ways to expand. The network plans a 24-hour cable news channel and is opening bureaus in Frankfurt and Tokyo. The problem with the foreign coverage of most US newspapers isn't quality per se, according to Hess, but selection. Even the smallest papers typically subscribe to the Associated Press, which produces a flood of interesting foreign stories every day, from analyses of Boris Yeltsin's political problems to the controversy over Canada's proposed Canoe Hall of Fame. Many also pay for The New York Times news service or the syndicate of The Washington Post. Rather, the issue with newspapers is selection. Most city editors of mid-size and small papers use nothing but the crisis and combat foreign stories duplicated on TV. Filler foreign datelines often are cut-down, sketchy accounts that convey little information. "It's very strange to read these papers and see the degree to which they had picked stuff that was meaningless," says Hess. Our myopic world and welcome to it Actually, American editors may not be alone in this regard. The media of most nations overwhelmingly focus on stories at home, says Everette Dennis, director of the media studies center at Columbia University in New York. In some parts of the world rulers still actively suppress news about happenings outside their borders. Perhaps the real problem with foreign news is that it is a bastion of conservatism, muses Mr. Dennis. While domestic news sections have undergone large changes in the manner and focus of coverage since the 1970s, international stories are often formulaic, official-source driven news that interest neither editors, readers, nor viewers. "If it was written better people would care more," says Dennis. "People are interested in health issues, wherever they are. They're interested in all kinds of economic news, if it's pertinent to them." 1996/01/30, p. 1. * Staff editor Scott Baldauf contributed to this report.
Foreign News Finds Niche on the Net: Both newspapers and TV networks are venturing into cyberspace to report on global issues By: Dirk Smillie, Special to The Christian Science Monitor Dateline: NEW YORK International stories on the nightly newscasts dropped precipitously over the past decade, as the major US television networks closed foreign news bureaus and cut the number of their overseas correspondents. But now these same networks are renewing their commitment to international news - in cyberspace. Web sites operated by the networks are becoming rich repositories of breaking stories and international reports that never make it on the evening news. If foreign news is finding its niche on the net, it may be because the medium matches the message. By definition, the Internet is international. Its vast communications grid allows massive amounts of data to be conveyed to multiple users at minimal cost. And unlike most mediums, cyberspace offers journalists a bottomless "news hole" and a growing global audience estimated to be 30 million to 50 million people. This year, international news in cyberspace is poised for even more growth. Redesigns of network Web sites are under way at ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Some sites will offer more personalized news; others, bolder graphics. The one feature they'll all share is a major expansion of international news. In March, CNN Interactive will more than triple its foreign coverage as it expands its "World" news section into five subsections covering Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East. As part of its redesign of its Web site in June, MSNBC will launch a series of culturally customized news pages aimed at citizens in countries such as Germany, France, and Japan. Web surfers clicking on MSNBC's site from Munich, for example, will get national news in German and international news from a European perspective. 'A Real Thirst' "There's a real thirst on the Internet for international news, something you don't see among television audiences," says Andy Beers, executive producer for news at MSNBC On the Internet. Scott Ehrlich, director of Fox News Internet, agrees, noting that foreign news on Fox's Internet site is one of its most popular features. "The appetite for international news is definitely there, especially among recent immigrants and those who are strongly attached to their ethnic heritage." Efforts to expand the international news beat are driven largely by network news executives who believe in filling a niche they see left abandoned by newspapers and network newscasts. Reuters, one of the first international news providers on the Web, draws an average of 3.5 million "hits" a day from Internet users logging on to the 35 Web sites and on-line services that subscribe to Reuters' wire services, says Wendy Zajack, Reuters' manager of media relations. "News on a Web site keeps bringing people back to it," says Ms. Zajack. At CNN Interactive, the "World" section for international news is one of the top three destinations for the CNN site, says Scott Woelfel, vice president and editor in chief of CNN Interactive. Drawing on CNN's 30 news bureaus around the world, the network's Web site offers between 50 to 100 pages of new content daily, and the site's content is divided equally between domestic and international news. About 30 percent of those who visit the site come from outside the US, says Mr. Woelfel. Whether an international story breaks from the United States or abroad, the audience for foreign news in cyberspace remains US-centric. Last December, MSNBC held a live, one-hour chat session with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the Middle East peace accords. The chat drew about 3,000 visitors: 75 percent from the US, 10 percent from the Middle East, 10 percent from Europe, and 5 percent from Asia. Research shows that those who draw their news from the Web fit the profile of typical cyberspace users: overwhelmingly male and college-educated, between 25 and 45 years old, married, and making more than $50,000 per year. For now, the economic model for news on the Web emphasizes prestige, not profits. None of the networks' Web sites are reported to be making any money. In competing for international news audiences, the networks' Web sites face more than just competition among themselves. Besides global news giants like the Associated Press, Dow Jones, Reuters, and the BBC, virtually every nation with Web access delivers international news in cyberspace. The Web as Melting Pot The Web is rapidly becoming a media melting pot of globally available information, where one can locate more than 50 Italian on-line newspapers and magazines just a click away from Iraq's four-language "Kurdistan Web." In addition, hundreds of government information ministries and on-line parliamentary publications feed their own brand of news to the Web daily. More than 1,000 daily newspapers outside the US are on-line, with more launching every day. The Christian Science Monitor itself has a site that has recently seen dramatic growth in its audience. The Monitor, which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, now draws nearly 30,000 visitors a week to its Web site. Stories that resonate across national boundaries often involve celebrities, political scandals, or the health of heads of state. When the verdict was announced in the O.J. Simpson civil trial, the decision appeared among top stories on newspaper Web sites around the world. As the bandwidth of international news flow continues to broaden, new technologies will also play a role in how news is delivered on the Web. Merrill Brown, editor in chief of MSNBC On the Internet, says that his site's emphasis on international news will also be an opportunity to "reinvent our own storytelling techniques." In the future, says Mr. Brown, "We're going to illustrate stories with multimedia - photos, video, audio clips - which is going to be very alluring to people who may be turned off by the generally straightforward nature of international coverage." New ways to report the news are what make the medium of cyberspace so exciting, says Ronni Bennett, managing editor of CBS News on the Web. "It's like being in television in 1947," says Ms. Bennett. "Anyone who's working on the Web these days is literally inventing it. We're making it up as we go along." 1997/02/13, p. 12.
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