Editors revisit foreign news strategies
Commentary
By Charles L. Overby
Chairman and CEO, The Freedom Forum
12.15.98
International news coverage is declining in the United States.
I know that instinctively from observing front pages from all 50 states daily at the Newseum. You know that from watching television and reading newspapers in your hometown.
Surveys showing that readers and viewers rank international news highly don't seem to matter.
According to recent independent studies:
Edward Seaton, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, has been emphasizing the need to improve international coverage for many years. As editor of The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury, Seaton often surprises people with this worldwide view.
Seaton believes small towns in middle America have an important stake in international events.
That's why he and his ASNE colleagues have joined with The Freedom Forum to examine ways to improve international coverage in newspapers.
Forums with editors and educators yielded a useful handbook on how to localize international news.
"This handbook and its excellent list of practical suggestions show that journalists today easily can cover the world and bring it home to readers," Seaton said.
The handbook deals with everything from improving foreign news briefs to sending local reporters abroad to cover events of local interest.
John Maxwell Hamilton, dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, has been a strong advocate of improving international coverage.
As the moderator of one of our forums, Hamilton said, "It's not other people who are interdependent. It's everybody who is interdependent."
"Localizing the World" offers a guide for assessing the job being done with international coverage.
At year-end, editors would benefit from an honest appraisal of how news coverage is being allocated.