Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study.
The study, by the Pew Research Center and Tyler Marshall, a former foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, is based on a written survey of the top editors at 259 newspapers of all sizes and interviews with a sampling of those editors.
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Sixty-four percent of the newspapers reported cutting the space given to foreign news over three years, making that the area that has suffered at the most papers as the business contracts. Only 10 percent of the editors said they considered foreign news “very essential” to their papers.
“It’s really concerning when we have two wars overseas, our economy is more global, we’re competing with economies that are growing faster than ours, and our dependence on foreign oil is one of the biggest stories,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/business/media/21papers.html?ref=media