The above video (here's another link to it) is short and worth watching if for nothing else than the map of the world as it is portrayed by mainstream American news organizations. PRI (Public Radio International) president Alisa Miller also points out what is an excellent point: it's not that Americans aren't interested in international news, it's that it's not offered to them in substantial doses. And furthermore, when it is, it is not contextualized.
Today's top stories from KSL (Utah's most popular news source).
Top stories from the BBC (largest news network outside the US).I think that for the most part, U.S. news watchers are interested in stories for which they have some background, stories that actually function as stories in the sense that there are characters and plot arcs that hold their interest. While we get enough details to fill a soap opera on characters like Brittany Spears and Anna Nicole Smith, we only get some disjointed facts presented in literally 2 seconds flat on stories that could be as riveting as the most action-packed movies out there.
By the way, today is my first day back to work. Can you tell?
5 comments:
I'm really sad about America right now. Our news does suck. I read the Washington Post and the NYTimes, the New Yorker, and the Wall Street Journal. All of these sources are politically motivated and biased, and I'm often left wondering what is really going on.
Have you ever watched Fox News (I'm forced to watch it at the gym). They are out of touch with real news.
And another thing: American businesses are out of touch with consumers. GM just rolled out with the new H3T, the new Hummer. Microsoft made Word 2007 incompatible with Word 2003, and Iphone porn is rampant. Trek bikes just shut down LeMond. Scandinavian brands are starting to be imported like mad
There were a lot of years when I first got married that we didn't have TV, and a few years before that when I was in college that I didn't have TV either (point being, it had been a long time since I had watched TV). I remember being shocked when I was watching the news at work once and there was all kinds of stuff about Brittany Spears...on the NEWS!!
I listen to the BBC America news on the radio and am amazed at how much information we miss out on on our local channels.
Where do you work by the way?
When I get the chance to watch the local news I usually wonder why they need to race through the world news to get to the local stories. I guess they feel that our news is more important than world news. Utah is a pretty happening place.
I totally agree actually and I love NPR. And welcome back to work!
It is sad that most of what we know about our world is what we see on the nightly news in a minute. We really only know what the media shows and that is unfortunate because it hardly ever really happens the way they report it.
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