According to various theoretical perspectives, international news is particularly influential in people’s awareness and understanding of the world, mainly because most people have little direct contact with foreign countries and must rely on mediated accounts of them. This may result in distortions in how international news is perceived, including stereotypes like those of ‘backwards’ or ‘technologically illiterate’ people living abroad.
Academic and professional observers have witnessed a decline in the amount of international news coverage since the turn of the century, partly because it is difficult to produce. It requires a significant investment to travel to other countries, recruit specialized reporters or trustworthy local journalists and hire local fixers or translators. It also involves special challenges in terms of reporting, publishing and distribution, especially when involving a volatile situation in a foreign country.
The amount of international news coverage is also often determined by the relationship and history between a domestic country and the foreign country in question, with studies showing that events from culturally and geographically proximate countries tend to receive more news coverage than those from non-proximate or distant ones. Combined with the concentration of the production of international news among a few global journalistic outlets and international news agencies, this can result in global information flows that are often skewed toward Western perspectives and can lead to biases and unintended consequences.
One way to avoid these problems is for local reporters to approach international news less as something their audience must ingest, and more as an aspect of their everyday lives. For example, when covering the trade war with China, a reporter should look for regional companies that have Chinese operations and consider how those might impact their economy. They can also ask themselves how the issue of immigration impacts their community, and what might be done to address it.