Re: Media overkill...

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Mike wrote--
>  There is a lot of news happening all
>around the globe every single day, but unless it involves us, we simply don't
>care.  
>
This has also affected print journalism.  Blame short-sighted budget cuts in
both cases-- radio and TV used to do much more investigative and
international reporting and they even used to do (gasp) editorials.  But
cutbacks have usually meant fewer reporters on the street and fewer in
foreign countries.  Even the big newspapers like the Globe often use the
wire services for international news-- not only that, but the priorities
have always mystified me.  There are more journalists in the middle east
than in ALL of Europe and Asia (please don't flame me-- I saw some
statistics about this... I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm merely saying
that to most news organisations, the Middle East, and to some degree
Ireland, are what is meant by international news).  The theory is that
Americans don't care what is going on in China or Zimbabwe, but in fact,
it's expensive to put reporters in far away places.  To my knowledge, the
only ABC reporter in all of Italy only covers the Vatican... one reporter
for an entire large country???  But I digress.  As I said in a previous
post, "celebrity news" and puff pieces about network programming is much
cheaper and much less controversial than actually putting reporters in
various places and encouraging them to dig up news...  sigh... (that sound
you hear is Edward R. Murrow spinning in his grave... and spinning next to
his grave is Dorothy Thompson, who went to Germany to have a look-see in the
early 1930s and ended up with one of the first interviews with Hitler...)  

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