The World According to Newspapers

Is there such thing as over-coverage? In the past, we noted web sites quantifying how much coverage various counties receive.

Now Nicolas Kayser-Bril and Gilles Bruno mapped the countries covered by newspapers in 2007. As they explain in the Online Journalism Blog, countries in the maps they developed swell as they receive more media coverage. This study isn't about Israel specifically but about the MSM's priorities. Click on the different newspapers below to compare the foreign coverage and see how bloated Israel is each time.

Kayser-Bril makes two conclusions:

First, traditional newspapers are highly selective in their coverage of world news . . . .
Second, we see that web-only outlets do not offer such a different view of the world. That makes sense, considering the narrowing of the news agenda on the web that was described in the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s latest report. Their lack of resources forces them to contract their scope. Smaller issues are better covered by the blogosphere, which seems unbeatable at providing niche news.

What does this mean for Israel? Most Western newspapers have been cutting back on foreign bureaus, leaving international coverage primarily to wire services and reports originally published in the small number of large dailies that can afford to maintain a bureau in Israel.

Despite the cutbacks, the sheer volume of reports remains at a very high level. Does this mean that a small pool of journalists wields undue influence over the way the world perceives the Israeli-Arab conflict?

Posted at 02:17 PM