Networks' Int'l News Coverage at Record Low in 2008

Summary

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"It could be that when there's not a big election and the economy isn't in the toilet, international news will be back in the news," he said. "Or it may be that people interested in global news are getting it more and more online, and the TV networks may be saying, 'We'll just let individuals who are interested in this stuff get it on the Internet'."

"Everybody said after 9/11 that huge mistakes had been made in the nineties in concentrating too much on domestic news and not having a global outlook," he said. "There was an enormous attempt made [by the networks] to cover the rest of the world, especially the Islamic world, but it's gone downhill so much compared to last year, which already had the least international coverage of any year since 2001."

That 244 minutes, however, was a mere traction of the networks' 2007 Iraq War coverage which totaled nearly 1 200 minutes. In a special report issued last July, Tyndall traced the precipitous decline in Iraq coverage to September 2007 after the then-U.S. commander there, Gen. David Petraeus, successfully defended his "Surge" strategy during Congressional hearings.

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Networks' Int'l News Coverage at Record Low in 2008

WASHINGTON (IPS) - Despite two wars involving more than 200,000 U.S. troops and a global economic crisis, foreign-related news coverage by the three major U. S. television networks fell to a record low during 2008, according to the latest annual review of network news coverage by the authoritative Tyndall Report.

Squeezed out by intense coverage of the p...

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