RE: Complaint about American Media

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Feb 03 2003 - 02:31:18 MST

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    Mike Lorrey writes

    > A rather large percent of the population of the US was born elsewhere,
    > and the US remains far more ethnically diverse than Oz, or Canada, or
    > Britain, all countries claiming to be more cosmopolitan than the US, so
    > that ain't it.
    >
    > Oz, like Canada, are rather miniscule population wise compared to the
    > US, less than 10% of our population. So there is an automatic limiter
    > on how much stuff goes on in those countries.

    Well, if we say that the

           U.S. is 286 million,
           Canada 31 million
           Great Britain 60 million
           Australia 19 million
           Ireland 6 million
           New Zealand 4 million

    (the best I could do), then we have the U.S. comprising 286/406
    or 70 percent of the Anglosphere.

    > Here in the US, first we have our local coverage, then there is the
    > national coverage, which affords 10-20 times more content than the
    > local coverage generates (a large part of which is filtered out due to
    > lack of local interest), and only then do we get to 'international'
    > news, which is of even less interest than other areas of our own
    > country.

    Yes, but my focus in starting this thread was originally
    on how accurate the U.S. media is when reporting on
    international events. I've only tabulated 2 days worth
    of comparisons between the New York Times, and Melbourne's
    The Age, so I'll restrain my comments now.

    > Beyond this, keep in mind that the US produces more media content than
    > most other nations combined. Once we've waded through our own, there is
    > precious little time for hearing about the rest of you, much as you all
    > do your best to force yourselves upon us....

    I assume you're joking. Or being wry. In any case, there are
    good explanations as to why Americans have a history of isolation,
    and not needing to glance outside their own borders a lot. But
    in trying to ascertain the truth about certain international
    incidents, this is hardly an advantage.

    Lee



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