[Swprograms] International Focus Lacking and Why

[jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

>From the journalist reference site Poynteronline, comes this comment 
by Michael Glodfarb who has reported internationally for both NPR and 
the BBC, among others.  IMHO, it could be said that his comments can 
be extended to include what is happening in international broadcasting 
generally, as well as other formerly robust media outlets being 
challenged by progressively shrinking budgets--shrinking for no other 
reason than for what has become an accepted but poorly and under 
defined imperative that crowds out all others.  

Resources exist and, in general, they exist at a level higher than 
ever before.  After all, the world in general is richer than ever 
before.  We just badly need a redefinition of priorities, is all.  And 
Goldfarb gives us several cogent reasons why.

John Figliozzi

-----------

>From MICHAEL GOLDFARB: When the Iraq Study Group presented its report 
last December, one of the most headshaking moments came when James 
Baker noted that there were only six Arabic speakers out of a thousand 
Americans employed in our embassy in Baghdad. I imagine more than a 
few journalists felt a little twinge of superiority at that: our 
business may be in bad shape but it isn't as ineptly managed as that. 
Think again.

The Boston Globe's elimination of a desk that just five years ago 
included the late Betsy Neuffer, Charlie Sennott, Anthony Shadid, and 
David Filipov is just the worst example of how alike the news business 
and the Bush Administration are when it comes to management skill. 
Cutting back foreign coverage because it is expensive is the same kind 
of short-sighted, penny-wise pound-foolish management decision that 
has left so little money around the State department's budget for 
training schemes for Arab language specialists. 

The Bush Administation is ignorant of what is happening in Iraq 
because it is too cheap to pay for training its own translators and is 
reliant on others. American society is ignorant of what is happening 
in the world because the managers of its news industry are relying on 
only a handful of outlets to provide original coverage.

Having spent most of the last two decades reporting from abroad for 
American outlets let me try and explain a basic fact that seems to 
have escaped these managers:

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the world has become more, not 
less, complex. Therefore it needs more not fewer reporters covering 
it. I know this will sound extraordinary to the managers inside the 
newsrooms and on the publisher's floor but you can't get a full 
picture of the war in Iraq, Hugo Chavez, the tension between China's 
interior and Shanghai, or Darfur just by re-running copy from wire 
services or syndicated copy from the two Times's and the Washington 
Post. 

Can't be done. 

And as these cutbacks have gone on it has made American society even 
more ignorant than it was on September 11th of the world over which it 
is pre-eminent. September 11th provoked the plaintive question: "why 
do they hate us?" Cutting back foreign coverage isn't going to help 
answer that question the next time there is a terrorist outrage any 
more than having only 6 Arab speakers on your Baghdad embassy staff 
will help you understand Iraq.

But let's leave out appeals to newspaper ownership on the grounds of 
civic responsibility. Cutting foreign coverage is bad business. Far be 
it from me to tell Brian Tierney, the owner of the Inquirer, and Jack 
Welch, who would like to own the Boston Globe, much about business. 
Both believe that there is no need for Philadelphia and Boston papers 
to provide original foreign coverage. But I know their readership 
better than they do - as I broadcasted to these readers for years when 
I worked in public radio, an interactive platform before the concept 
existed - so let me tell them for free what their expensive focus-
groups and yes-men hacks won't tell them:

Both cities are home to high concentrations of elite universities and 
professional training schools. The people who read the Inquirer and 
the Globe travel abroad, are resolutely internationalist in their 
outlook and expect to read original content in their papers ... 
otherwise they'll simply read the New York Times (most read it anyway 
but they won't have a reason to read the homegrown paper if you don't 
provide them different information.)

I could make the same claim for the Baltimore Sun, Newsday and 
virtually every newspaper serving a major metropolitan area which used 
to have original foreign coverage and now has little or none. 

As for my colleagues: how much longer will you sit by and watch your 
industry gutted like a fish by Wall Street, egomaniacal billionaires 
and inept management placemen?

Do not expect the web to create the institutions that can replace the 
ones you work for now.

Sooner or later group action is going to be required to save 
journalism: Print or broadcast. Start thinking of ways to do it.
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