In “Rush of Events Gives Foreign News a Top Priority,” Brian Stelter writes:
The foreign press corps is working in exceptionally dangerous conditions in countries like Japan, where members carry radiation monitors on assignment, and in Libya, where crews of journalists have been detained. “We’ve had a year’s worth of international breaking news, and we’re only halfway through March,” said Tony Maddox, the executive vice president and managing director at CNN International, where anchors spoke on Saturday of being “live on five continents.”
The coverage exposes just how much reporting of foreign news has changed in the past decade, through cuts at news outlets and through the contributions of the Internet and other new technologies. Fewer journalists covering foreign news work full time for American broadcast networks than once did, and those who remain have had to hopscotch from one hot spot to another this year, sometimes creating lags in coverage.
But the networks are aided by a bounty of audio and video clips that would have been nonexistent a few years ago. Much of it comes from cellphone-equipped residents who are acting not just as camera operators, but as reporters, too.
Students: Tell us whether or not you tend to pay attention to events in other parts of the world, and why. Why, in your opinion, should we care about what happens in places far away from where we live in general?