You know, you’d think that with the ravening maw of the 24 hour news cycle that the number and variety of stories covered in the news media would be vast but I find it’s almost exactly the opposite. Rather than covering the opening of an envelope as you’d think they would reporters are piling on to the same stories and I think there are significant stories that go all but completely uncovered.
Finding such stories in international affairs is almost like shooting fish in a barrel there are so many of them. For example, the wars in Yemen, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Burma are substantial conflicts in which thousands of people have died but it’s almost as though they weren’t happening at all. The Mexican Drug War is enormous and right next door but we don’t really get much news of it here.
I’m actually somewhat sympathetic with media organizations about that. These wars are taking in places that are very hard to cover, in most cases without substantial U. S. involvement (we can’t be in every war, you know) and most U. S. news organizations have eliminated their foreign desks entirely or cut back on them severely.
IMO the continued carnage in the Austin, Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, and North Lawndale neighborhoods of Chicago is tragically undercovered and the media don’t even have the excuse that they’re hard to cover. Presumably, it’s an instantiation of Alfred Harmsworth’s observation that when a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often ut if a man bbites a dog, that is news which is even more tragic.
So, what stories, international or domestic, are presently undercovered in the U. S. media?
Pretty much everything I know about the situation with the Norks I learned from either the Daily Mail or bloggers.
The war in Yemen and what the Saudi assault on that country will likely mean for the future in terms of creating yet another breeding ground for terrorists is woefully under-covered. A good part of that, though, is the fact that it is hard for news agencies to get reporters there. The same is true of places such of Burma.
As for places like the Central African Republic, or the even bigger issue of the fact that the so-called “War On Terror” is quickly expanding into Africa, the sad fact is Americans don’t really care very much about these parts of the world and don’t understand that what’s happening there is likely to have implications for the world for years to come.
I wish there was more extensive follow-up on some local stories:
1. The only letter to Travis Reinking seeking to revoke his FOID card was based solely on the grounds that he was no longer a resident of Illinois. That sounds like a lot of what was said by law enforcement officials in DC, IL & TN was misleading. What’s the real story?
2. Reported that a bank who serves most of the medical marijuana distributors in the State will no longer do so. Is it really true that a bank in Springfield was serving most of the state business? If so, there is a warning sign there, but what happens next?
And to add insult to injury when they do get them there the closest they’ll get to where the story actually is is the bar in the Intercon.
How much should the press cover the Chicago shootings? It seems to me like we hear about them a lot. (If it bleeds , it leads.) It seems to me like we should hear more about the opioid deaths. There are a lot more of those. Yet, when I say that, I hear complaints that there is too much coverage of that problem. Other than that I would like to hear more, of course, about health care issues in the news.
I would like to see more coverage of all the foreign stuff you mentioned, plus more about South America in general. I feel like we don’t know much about our own hemisphere. However, given newsroom budgets, don’t see it happening. I did think they made an effort to cover the Ebola outbreak that was fairly well done.
Steve
I think there needs to be more coverage of what the President tweets.
Seriously though, I would like to see more foreign stuff. But I can get that from BBC, Al Jazeera and France24 without the BS Fox and MSNBC domestical political spin on it.
I agree we need less POV. So many topics are only covered with POV reporting and it’s impossible to present a complete look at the issue using that style.
– There’s a lot of stuff going on in Africa. The most recent item is China is shooting lasers at US aircraft near Djibouti.
– We don’t hear anything about South Sudan anymore.
– What about Iraq? Two guys I knew died there last month (it was an accident), but there’s nothing on what’s going on in Iraq.
– Hurricane recovery in the USVI and Puerto Rico.
– The Kabul suicide bombings were mentioned – probably only because so many journalists were killed (saw and shared lots of black comedy items on “Infinity war” and Afghanistan on facebook).
– Yesterday the UAE occupied Socotra. That’s a pretty big deal IMO.
Steve,
The only place I hear about Chicago shootings in here and on right-wing blogs. Since I don’t watch network or 24-hour opinion news networks, I can’t say whether it’s covered there or not. However, based on my admittedly limited sample, left-leaning news orgs don’t cover it at all and right-leaning news orgs only cover it to try to show the left’s hypocrisy – in other words, they only care about it in terms of partisan advantage.
As papers get thinner, noticed a decline in reports on the various boards and commission meetings, also notably a page or so about just international news (and maps) in small to medium size papers.
Andy- Our local paper and TV stations cover Chicago killings, especially if there is a kid involved, like the 4 y/o recently, or there are multiple killings. Seems like every week or two I see one. I compare that with stories on opioid deaths in other states that I see maybe once every week or two. And we have about 100 times as many opioid deaths. (OK, I guess it is possible our local channel is a Sinclair station. Don’t know that.)
Steve