Email to a friendMedia Views
Miami Herald: Why Ignoring Our Northern Neighbor Matters (4/16/07) by Edward Wasserman
Reacting to news that corporate news outlets' relentless slashing of foreign coverage budgets has reached North America as the Washington Post "follows the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times in ending full-time coverage of this country's northern neighbor." The pitiful reality is that "by this summer...no U.S. newspaper will have a staff correspondent in Canada."It's as if American working stiffs aren't supposed to hear that their counterparts in Germany get six weeks a year of vacation, that Canadians are healthier than we are, and that ordinary people in most countries of Europe don't need to worry that they'll be financially ruined if they get sick.... For an imperial power, the United States is an oddly incurious place. Our media don't help. They should poke and prod and demand that we pay attention to people abroad even when they're neither disaster victims nor terrorists. Instead, by their inattention, the media perpetuate the dangerous belief that our divine right is to speak and be heeded, never to listen.
FAIR does not endorse every opinion expressed or vouch for facts presented here, except by ourselves. Send link suggestions to jnaureckas@fair.org.
