Who Engages And Informs The American Public On Foreign Affairs?

From Mountain Runner:

Who engages and informs the American public on foreign affairs. It isn’t the media.

This shows Lara Logan’s lament about television’s cutback is a reality in print.

The survey used three different measures to probe the question. It asked about space devoted to a range of topics. It asked about the amount of reporting resources assigned to cover each topic. And it asked how essential editors thought each topic was to their paper’s identity.

By all three measures, international news is rapidly losing ground at rates greater than any other topic area. Roughly two-thirds (64%) of newsroom executives said the space devoted to foreign news in their newspaper had dropped over the past three years. Nearly half (46%) say they have reduced the resources devoted to covering the topic–also the highest percentage recording a drop. Only 10% said they considered foreign coverage “very essential.”

This decline in foreign news occurs as U.S. armed forces confront stubborn insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Administration talks of a global war on terrorism and international trade increasingly impacts the everyday lives of Americans.

My Comment: The decline in the coverage of international news has been directly proportional to the development and growth of the internet. I can use my own personal experience as an example ..... I no longer read my city newspapers coverage on the war in Iraq .... I read blogs, news services from Iraq, and those news organizations that may have a reporter in the area. I also read Arabic News Agencies and papers (a large number of them are now translated into English), and videos that are usually uploaded on the same day on Youtube. Blogs have had the biggest impact for me. I have a list of over 30 blogs that cover Iraq. These blogs are written by embeds, soldiers, and Iraqi citizens. What newspaper can compete with that.

The American public is well inform with what is happening in Iraq .... probably at levels that have never been reached before. They just do not trust what the main stream media is telling them ..... and probably with good cause.