# Perceptions of foreign media/press in your country.



## Jacobtm

As an American, I have to turn to foreign media frequently if I want to get detailed coverage about events beyond my country. I also like to read foreign reporting on the US, even though it's not as in-depth as domestic sources it's interesting to get a different perspective on things most familiar to me. 

I regularly read the BBC and The Economist, both British sources with a more global perspective than most American publications. As my foreign language abilities have increased, I've tried to read more Spanish-language publications, especially from Latin America, which is poorly reported on by most mainstream English-language sources.

But in countries that are perhaps less self-centered than the US, how do you relate to foreign press? Are newspapers and magazines from other countries widely available? Does your domestic press focus sufficiently on other parts of the world? How do you feel the foreign press treats your country?


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## Montesacro

In Italy foreign newspapers and magazines are widely available provided you are in a major city or in a crowded tourist destination. 
In a newsstand you’ll usually find publications from Germany, France, England, sometimes from Spain and the Netherlands, more rarely from somewhere else. Of course they are bought exclusively by tourists. 
Generally speaking Italians do not read foreign press. 
On the other hand Italian newspapers report quite extensively news from abroad: many pages are daily devoted to “_le notizie dal mondo_” (news from the world).
Comments and interviews originally published on foreign newspapers are often translated and published on domestic publications: there is a magazine named “L’internazionale” (well, its name says it all..) that is made up exclusively of foreign translated articles.

I usually read “La Repubblica”, which is a roman left-wing newspaper. Its Monday edition has eight pages of non-translated selected news from “The New York Times”.
On a nearly daily basis I also read the on-line versions of “El País” (above all to get more circumstantiated news from Latin America) and “The Guardian”.

As for how foreign press treats my country: well, to be honest I’m not very interested in this issue. One thing that one immediately notices is that foreign correspondents often show a not negligible degree of ignorance about how things work in Italy. 
But I guess it is inevitable…


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## shawnee

Hey Montesacro; what do you mean not interested in your country? We can't wait for the next Berlusconi news! 
Australia has been forced into the global consciousness by calamitous world events. Foreign newspapers are not readily available and second language skills, while a high priority with policy makers, is not high on the average person's list. We are fortunate, however, in our SBS TV channel, which is mandated to reflect a more multicultural perspective. This is particularly noticeable in the news presentation which deals far more with global events that the other channels.


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## mirx

Mexican TV broadcasters and the press in general don't usually cover foreign news, I would say this is a reflection of people's desinterest to know anything else than what happens in their own community. 

There is a section in the newspaper called "Internacional" but I suppose it goes unnoticed by the average reader.

So, compared to Europe or other parts of the world, Mexican media is very limited to what happens in México; but then again, those European countries have a lot more interaction with one another and so it just makes sense that their populations be aware of what is going on on the other side.


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## capaul1977

My personal experience is with US and Honduran news

Given recent events in Honduras I have had the need to look to several different sources of information to get what I can only hope is a reasonably balanced story. I was surprised that there was nothing in the U.S. media about the situation until Zelaya had already been exiled, and even then there was little coverage until a couple days later. This had been building for a while and Hondurans were told ahead of time to stay at home because it was going to happen.

Once the story finally broke, most U.S. media outlets very clearly took a specific viewpoint and chose sides. A New York Times article which favored Zelaya had several reader comments attached, the majority of which supported the Honduran government's actions. The editor marked several posts as "editors pick". These "picks" were _all_ comments which favored the editors position supporting Zelaya even though there were some very well thought-out arguments supporting the legality and reasoning of the Honduras government.

The BBC had a similar article (I am guessing from the same AP source), but asked for responses from specifically from Hondurans. About ninety percent of the responses favored the actions of the Honduran government.

To add to this, the US almost religiously covered the protests by Zelaya supporters, but had almost no coverage of rallies by government supporters which, in attendance, outnumbered the Zelaya protests by 10 to 1. 

Someone PLEASE tell me where to find reporters / media outlets who report the facts, do ACTUAL research, and cover BOTH sides of a story without injecting their personal opinions. Oooooh for the days when news was a public service not a profit center and political weapon.

That said, I tend to trust BBC more than US media outlets. Honduran papers seem to me to be rather biased and activist. El Heraldo mentions regularly how their reporting got the government to do something or other. U.S. media Fox News and MSNBC are strictly entertainment and pathetic political tools.

As for International coverage little is available in Honduras, but in the major cities (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula) one can find major U.S. newspapers.  The internet is by far the best source to access news for different countries as well as general international news.

My perception...


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## PABLO DE SOTO

Jacobtm said:


> As an American, I have to turn to foreign media
> 
> But in countries that are perhaps less self-centered than the US, how do you relate to foreign press? In Spain very few Spaniards read foreign press or listen to the news from international TV channels
> .Are newspapers and magazines from other countries widely available?
> Only in major cities and touristic destinations Does your domestic press focus sufficiently on other parts of the world? Some countries more than others. As an example there is a wide coverage of the elections in USA, France, Britain, Italy or Germany and the largest Latin American countries but who knows who won tha last election in , say, Finland, Iceland, let alone Burkina Faso.
> How do you feel the foreign press treats your country? When I have been abroad I have had the feeling that Spain is non existent for other countries but the Latin American ones


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## Pedro y La Torre

In Ireland our international exposure is generally limited to American and British publications. You can easily find Time, Newsweek, the Economist etc. In my experience though it's virtually impossible to find non-English (except for Irish) language publications in shops.

That being said, our own newspapers generally focus extensively on foreign news. I guess it's because we're such a small country and there's not that much going on.


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## felicity09

I would agree with Capaul1977. There is very little real journalism anymore, most information is simply recycled and then sadly, though somewhat understandably in a complex world, accepted as fact. I'm sure most countries report on what they consider of greatest interest to their readers/viewers, and the more powerful the country the more likely it is to seem self-obsessed. News coverage is a business after all. Many people are simply not very discriminating anymore - they'll eat anything, watch anything, read anything... An obvious example would be the sudden lack of coverage of events in Iran upon the death of a pop star. Perhaps in some cases, people get the media (and government) they deserve.That being said, this is not an easy time to be a 'real' journalist; there is information saturation, yet very little in-depth reporting is required and it can be quite dangerous in some countries. As far as trusted news sources, I would say none, they all have an agenda, so a wide sampling is probably the best option.


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## wonderlicious

Although not much so in smaller places, in larger cities within the UK, you can find a selection of foreign newspapers and magazines fairly easily. These are normally found in independent newsagents, however they can also be found in larger shops. For example, in Nottingham (yes, hometown of Robin Hood ), I once saw a whole rack of foreign newspapers and magazines in a WH Smith (a bookshop-cum-stationers chain in the UK). Equally, in the Borders chain of bookshops, a collection of American imports can be found, and (on a somewhat related note) both Waterstones and Borders have foreign literature for sale. Sky and

Yet having lived in both Germany and France, I would say that the UK is less exposed to foreign press. In Munich, for example, a lot of newsstands have quite a large selection of British, American and French papers and magazines, as well as a range of Italian, Spanish, Russian and Turkish publications. In WH Smith in Nottingham, by comparison, there was about one publication for each language.

Foreign affairs are most certainly covered - especially at the BBC - but not as much as how respective foreign affairs would be covered in, say, Germany.


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## Miguelillo 87

Well as mirx has said, in Mexico broadcaster sucks, TV it's just nonsense, but newspapers I think it depends on which one you are reading...but about international news all of the say the same, it appears Reuters it's the principal source so if you read the international section of La Jornada, El Universal, Reforma etc... it's the same!!!! Even it's almost the same redaction someday when I was reading the accident of the french plane which crashed into the ocean, I read two papers and both have the same paragraph!!!!

Here in Mexico city El país it's sold in several places and I've read and I can say it's a very international newspaper, We don't have a paper like that in our country.

About how the media seen us, well I usually read Le Monde and canadians papers on line in order to improve my French, and I have to say only the most schoked news like drugs, or natural disasters are shown. But normally drugs are the covers for Mexico section on those papers


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## curly

Pedro y La Torre said:


> In Ireland our international exposure is generally limited to American and British publications. You can easily find Time, Newsweek, the Economist etc. *In my experience though it's virtually impossible to find non-English (except for Irish) language publications in shops.*
> 
> That being said, our own newspapers generally focus extensively on foreign news. I guess it's because we're such a small country and there's not that much going on.


 
I don't know about that, I regularly buy le monde, le figaro and libération and find I can get it anywhere I go.

 It's usually accompanied by El pais, el mundo, la repubblicca (sorry about the spellings I only know these papers because they're usually obscuring the french ones) and a few german papers the name of which I can't remember( der welt-something-or-other).

There are even Irish produced newspapers written in Polish!

You can get them in most newsagents worth the name plus Eurospar, Centra, Londis and of course Eason. It's true that they're generally on the bottom shelf, piled upon each other, but they're there all the same.


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## Pedro y La Torre

curly said:


> I don't know about that, I regularly buy le monde, le figaro and libération and find I can get it anywhere I go.
> 
> It's usually accompanied by El pais, el mundo, la repubblicca (sorry about the spellings I only know these papers because they're usually obscuring the french ones) and a few german papers the name of which I can't remember( der welt-something-or-other).
> 
> There are even Irish produced newspapers written in Polish!
> 
> You can get them in most newsagents worth the name plus Eurospar, Centra, Londis and of course Eason. It's true that they're generally on the bottom shelf, piled upon each other, but they're there all the same.



You're right of course, however I was (perhaps imprecisely) referring to magazine publications like _Nouvel Obs, L'Express, Der Spiegel _etc. Unlike newspapers (which are widely available) I can't remember ever coming across these in Irish shops, that's not to say they're not there somewhere though.


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## curly

These three certainly are available in most Eason shops, in the magazine rack. Two shops that definitely have them are Eason in Swords and on O'Connol Street. Most shops are also fairly open to putting in a standing order of a copy when asked nicely.


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## Macunaíma

The coverage of international events in the Brazilian media is quite satisfactory in my opinion and anyone who reads the papers or a major weekly magazine can be said to be reasonably informed about what's going on outside Brazil. Of course, because we are such a large country with so many things to report on every day, domestic news tends to be the main focus. 

The availability of foreign media in Brazil is all but non-existent. You are hard put to find a foreign magazine or paper even in a Brazilian large city, and then many foreign publications have a Brazilian version (like Le Monde Diplomatique and even the BBC website). 

There is a large number of foreign correspondents in Brazil and what they publish about the country has sometimes been the subjects of news here - sometimes because it's amusingly ridiculous, sometimes because it's very lucid and insightful, and sometimes plain controversial (like the famous article by Larry Rohter for the New York Times suggesting that Brazilians were concerned about Lula's alcoholism, illustrated by a rather unflattering picture of our President as drunk as a skunk ).

I don't trust foreign media more than I trust Brazilian media, which I consider to be generally very serious and competent. Every newspaper, magazine or even TV channel is inevitably biased, so if we want to get a balanced view of a story we have to read from as many sources as possible. They all have their editorial guidelines, their policies that somehow reflect a bias. I used to trust the BBC in this respect (being as neutral as possible) until I saw an interview of Lula in a BBC programme called Hard Talk in which he was given such an easy ride that I had to conclude it had either been a fraud or the interviewer was the most misinformed journalist ever.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Macunaíma said:


> I used to trust the BBC in this respect (being as neutral as possible) until I saw an interview of Lula in a BBC programme called Hard Talk in which he was given such an easy ride that I had to conclude it had either been a fraud or the interviewer was the most misinformed journalist ever.



I haven't seen the interview but to be honest most ordinary people don't know that much about Brazil except for it's size and the fact that they're great at soccer. I'm not saying the journalist wasn't biased but perhaps he didn't have that much to ask the man (or at least many hard-hitting questions that would resonate with an international audience).

Anglo-American media after all tends to be decidedly self-centred.


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## Macunaíma

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I haven't seen the interview but to be honest most ordinary people don't know that much about Brazil except for it's size and the fact that they're great at soccer. I'm not saying the journalist wasn't biased but perhaps he didn't have that much to ask the man (or at least many hard-hitting questions that would resonate with an international audience).
> 
> Anglo-American media after all tends to be decidedly self-centred.


 
That's true about the average British person, and I don't blame them -- the average Brazilian also knows little about Russia, China or Ireland for that matter (except that they are the makers of Guiness beer, of course ). However, I believe journalists are not average people, they are educated and very well informed, or at least they should be, otherwise they should try another job. And they have all the more reason to be exceptionally well informed when they are interviewing the President of one of the largest economies in the world against whose party there are serious accusations of corruption. Nothing about that was mentioned. It was revolting. He was treated like a celebrity. Very disappointing.

By the way, you can watch the interview on Youtube.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Macunaíma said:


> That's true about the average British person, and I don't blame them -- the average Brazilian also knows little about Russia, China or Ireland for that matter (except that they are the makers of Guiness beer, of course ). However, I believe journalists are not average people, they are educated and very well informed, or at least they should be, otherwise they should try another job. And they have all the more reason to be exceptionally well informed when they are interviewing the President of one of the largest economies in the world against whose party there are serious accusations of corruption. Nothing about that was mentioned. It was revolting. He was treated like a celebrity. Very disappointing.
> 
> By the way, you can watch the interview on Youtube.



I have watched a part of it and it seems pretty standard fare to me, no easier or harder than usual. Like I said, HardTalk is a show generally focused on international affairs so if the interviewer didn't question Da Silva on internal corruption matters, it's perhaps because of this.

In any case, the BBC are usually pretty good for neutral reporting, but I suppose like any news organization, they have a built-in editorial bias.


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## Macunaíma

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I have watched a part of it and it seems pretty standard fare to me, no easier or harder than usual. Like I said, HardTalk is a show generally focused on international affairs so if the interviewer didn't question Da Silva on internal corruption matters, it's perhaps because of this.
> 
> In any case, the BBC are usually pretty good for neutral reporting, but I suppose like any news organization, they have a built-in editorial bias.


 
My perception is that they tend to treat left-wing politicians with a certain degree of leniency. I listen regularly to a programme on Radio4 called From Our Own Correspondent and their analyses from Latin American politics is not only a bit shallow and generalistic but sometimes blatantly biased. It sometimes seems to me that they adopt a formula: if you are the leader of a "developing country" you have to be a leftist to be good. The BBC is extremely reluctant to credit Colombia's right-wing President for the country's success in defeating the FARC guerilla and still depicts FARC as a political movement (a political movement run by drug lords, kidnappers and assassins). When Hugo Chavez shut down a TV station in Venezuela which criticized his government, the matter was reported on rather lightly, pretty much as if such an outrageous act was "common" for Latin American standards. In a recent report about Rafael Correa's suicidal economic policies (defaulting on foreign debt for ideological reasons in a country with practically no domestic market, totally dependant on international credit) the BBC correspondent presented it in rather favourable colours, interviewing poor people who were blissfully ignorant of the fact that their country's future was being seriously compromised by a demagogue. In its coverage about the recent ousting from power of the Honduran President, I realized there was little emphasis on the fact that those who ousted him were acting legally to defend their country's constitution. As far as Lula's interview is concerned, I thought it was revolting that a journalist should have chosen to ignore the fact that Lula's party was imbroiled in the most serious corruption scandal in Brazilian history and should have let him get away with boasting on Brazil's unprecedented economic prosperity without reminding him that this is all due to the very economic policies that he used to criticize when he was the opposition to Cardoso's government and which he labelled as "neo-liberal". I have no doubt in my mind that the whole thing was a sham.


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## Judica

Neo-liberals, Leftists, whatever. Reporters should report the news and leave politics to the politicians. That's the BIG problem today.  

News has become very political and opinionated, its not good for objectivity and formulation of your own opinion on an event. Plus US main stream media are known to outright lie or give only half an account, depending on agenda. When we (in the US) do get news from some other country, it is always bad and reported in such a way as to incite fear.

From the news in the US, one would gather that all latinos are poor, uneducated, brown, peasants who have coups, sell and produce drugs,  belong to gangs, and massacre one another. They also live in our (the US) "back yard". [Like our dogs or something.] All Arabic peoples are crazy bomb toting devils. We of course, know this is not true. Yet it is the portrayal in the US news based on some agenda.

I have found the foreign news services to be far more objective and knowledgeable (of history) in reporting happenings around the world. I also like that the names of people making comments are still used for legitimacy in reporting.


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## oiseauxlahaut

In France I don't see a ton of printed foreign press, but there are a few newspapers from England and a few english-language international-edition journals (like Time and Newsweek- they have a different version than the one you get in the US, here it's a rest-of-the-world version). If I look hard I can find some American papers. I was so surprised to see how well-informed the French were during the US elections, though, mostly through their own press.
I try to read the news (mostly online, natch) in as many languages as I can (3) and from as many countries as I can, especially when it's a controversial topic. It's also fun to read the smaller, local stories and see what people in other countries are occupied with.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Just to add to what oiseauxlahaut said; from what I've seen, in France, foreign language publications (where they are known) are generally well recieved. The main exception would be Fox News, which is almost universally regarded as a right-wing propaganda channel - a not unfair analysis.


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## dec-sev

Macunaíma said:


> I used to trust the BBC in this respect (being as neutral as possible) until I saw an interview of Lula in a BBC programme called Hard Talk in which he was given such an easy ride that I had to conclude it had either been a fraud or the interviewer was the most misinformed journalist ever.


I started watching BBC Word some years ago in order to improve my perception skills. I mean the language. At that time it was my only source as far as the English language is concerned. I can also say that I had trusted them, but only until I saw a reportage from a place I lived in and it was a lie. Later there was a report from Kiev (Ukraine). A friend of mine lived there. I phoned him and told him about the BBC report. He said that was a lie. And then I thought: “Why should it be different when they report about other countries?” 
A year ago there was a reportage about then Russia’s president Putin's visit to Japan. If you don’t know, Russia and Japan have had a long territorial dispute about 4 islands. So, the reporter said something like “Putin’s visit was marked by a demonstration of protest...” Then camera showed the demonstrators.  There was about 6-8 of them  But strictly speaking BBC told the truth that time 


> That's true about the average British person, and I don't blame them -- the average Brazilian also knows little about Russia, China or Ireland for that matter


 Have you seen that movie where Arnold Shwarzneger acted as a Russian police officer?  It's killing )))))))


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## Dmitry_86

Because of my constant business I do not have enough time to watch news broadcasts but when they are on the air and I am at home (in the evening) I try not to miss them. The attitude to other countries is generally neutral, at least I do not smell any preconception. However, none of us knows truth for sure - we know what we are told or what we see. That is why, opinions may prove erroneous. I may give some examples but will not do it here because our forum is international and, probably, some members will dislike my words.

I live in Saint-Petersburg and we do not have much foreign press. I regularly read "Saint-Petersburg Times", which comes out twice a week. But I do not seek anything specific there and nor do I want to find out someone's attitude to some event. I read them mainly with the aim of improving my English. Foreign press is almost unavailable in Russia, only on the Internet or in some special places (prestigious hotels, exhibitions) not all people are aware of. Once I yearned to obtain an American paper and even opened a thread on one of the forums asking people to help me find it. As a result, I managed to do it but the paper was nearly 10 times as expensive as an ordinary Russian one. So I rejected the idea to buy it and now sometimes read it via online access.


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## Jacobtm

Dmitry_86 said:


> Because of my constant business I do not have enough time to watch news broadcasts but when they are on the air and I am at home (in the evening) I try not to miss them. The attitude to other countries is generally neutral, at least I do not smell any preconception. However, none of us knows truth for sure - we know what we are told or what we see. That is why, opinions may prove erroneous. I may give some examples but will not do it here because our forum is international and, probably, some members will dislike my words.
> 
> I live in Saint-Petersburg and we do not have much foreign press. I regularly read "Saint-Petersburg Times", which comes out twice a week. But I do not seek anything specific there and nor do I want to find out someone's attitude to some event. I read them mainly with the aim of improving my English. Foreign press is almost unavailable in Russia, only on the Internet or in some special places (prestigious hotels, exhibitions) not all people are aware of. Once I yearned to obtain an American paper and even opened a thread on one of the forums asking people to help me find it. As a result, I managed to do it but the paper was nearly 10 times as expensive as an ordinary Russian one. So I rejected the idea to buy it and now sometimes read it via online access.



Dmitry,

It's interesting that you think that foreign press is generally fair towards your country, since in my experience the British and American press has been largely negative, reporting stories that make Russia seem threatening, dictatorial, corrupt, abusive towards human rights, etc.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Jacobtm said:


> Dmitry,
> 
> It's interesting that you think that foreign press is generally fair towards your country, since in my experience the British and American press has been largely negative, reporting stories that make Russia seem threatening, dictatorial, corrupt, abusive towards human rights, etc.



Does reporting that imply unfairness? If one reports that Iran is clamping down on human rights and torturing protesters is this proof of an inherent bias against a country or just accurate reporting of what's going on at the moment?


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## dec-sev

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Does reporting that imply unfairness?


Telling lies implies unfairness. And there is a lot of lie in foreign press about Russia. At least in BBC. I watch _Euronews_ (in Spanish, because I learn the language). I think their stand is more or less impartial.


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## Dmitry_86

Jacobtm said:


> Dmitry,
> 
> It's interesting that you think that foreign press is generally fair towards your country, since in my experience the British and American press has been largely negative, reporting stories that make Russia seem threatening, dictatorial, corrupt, abusive towards human rights, etc.


 
You have understood my view correctly but I said it with reserve that I have not really read much of foreign press. There are several papers in English that come out in Saint-Petersburg and Moscow and edited by foreigners (for whom English is a mother tongue) so that the style resembles that typical of real British and American papers. But we all realize that these reporters, journalists and editors, though writing in English, are now staying and working in Russia and no one wants to risk being dismissed for having written something that wounds my country's pride. At the same time, it is not true that we write in a negative style about the USA, for example. Maybe someone will find the corresponding articles offensive but I have never found them so. It is rather neutral and frank. 

I have seen real foreign papers not too many times by now. I wish I could read them more often but it is hard for one to get them unless online. But even despite only a few times of dealing with foreign papers I have seen something I disliked only several times. It is inherent of any country to exaggerate some events especially when they concern the other country that used to be their rival ("cold war" between the Soviet Union and the USA). Hence, I was not surprised.


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## Jacobtm

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Does reporting that imply unfairness? If one reports that Iran is clamping down on human rights and torturing protesters is this proof of an inherent bias against a country or just accurate reporting of what's going on at the moment?



The press can be accurate and unfair by ignoring the truth when it doesn't fit into their story-line and reporting the truth when it does.

True, Russia has done any number of bad things, but the press only reports those bad things. Russia has a pre-formed image, and the stories all help reinforce that image, rather than offering anything that might possibly challenge the image of Russia as anything other than "enemy".


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## sdgraham

capaul1977 said:


> Someone PLEASE tell me where to find reporters / media outlets who report the facts, do ACTUAL research, and cover BOTH sides of a story without injecting their personal opinions. Oooooh for the days when news was a public service not a profit center and political weapon.


 
Unfortunately, there's a bit of naïveté here.

If you don't want private enterprise to cover the news, that leaves the government to do it. Would you prefer that?

Reporters are not a perfect bunch and my experience is that good reporters satisfy nobody and irritate those on both sides of the issue.

I find the bulk of today's pseudo-journalists (particularly the talking heads of television) to be a dismal, unqualified lot given to herd reporting - but I'll take that over the government (any government) manipulating the news any day.


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## Pedro y La Torre

sdgraham said:


> I find the bulk of today's pseudo-journalists (particularly the talking heads of television) to be a dismal, unqualified lot given to herd reporting - but I'll take that over the government (any government) manipulating the news any day.



Even when those pseudo-journalists push the White House's agenda such as was the case for Fox News under Bush, and (seemingly) now for MSNBC under Obama?

I don't think anyone would ever support the government "manipulating the news" but from what I know of the federally funded service, PBS, it seems far more trustworthy (and balanced) to me than MSNBC or Fox.

From an Irish standpoint, our publicly owned broadcaster RTE provides a very fair and accurate service. Of course it is often pilloried by elements on the right who accuse it of having an inherent left-wing bias, but this seems to be a recurrent phenomenon in most Western democracies.


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## Outlandish

Jacobtm said:


> But in countries that are perhaps less self-centered than the US, how do you relate to foreign press? Are newspapers and magazines from other countries widely available? Does your domestic press focus sufficiently on other parts of the world? How do you feel the foreign press treats your country?


 
Thank you for this cultural topic which is very important and is often raised in my country.
There are feelings of dismay at the way the foreign press and media treat the problems of the Arab world and my country Egypt. People think that on purpose twisting of my country and other countries affairs in foreign press is a reality. The strange thing is that unconnected foreign newspapers from countries far away from each other just repeat the false information first given. The reason is the political agendas of these journals' countries.
Yet, some news, usually far from politics, are fully presented in foreign newspapers more than in national ones.


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## Jacobtm

Outlandish, do you regularly read anglophone news sources? In my country, egypt is treated very oddly, it seems to be able to play whatever "character" the story calls for.

Sometimes it's a faithful ally in the war on terror, the example of a muslim country that can work with western powers, make peace with israel, and help against the fight against "radical islamic terrorism".

Other times it's the byproduct of American imperialism; just another non-democratic government that we've propped up for it's convenience as a non-hostile regime in the region, at the expense of its people. 

Yet other times, it can be seen as a threat, since the unfree nature of the country (our press almost always portrays Egypt as unfree, though I have no idea how accurate that is) can be seen as fostering the exact "radical islamic extremism" that we're trying so hard to confront. In this case, blame can either be shifted on the US gov't, or can be shifted totally on egypt, depending on the prespective of the news.

In Egypt, is there much feeling that the United States is deeply involved in propping up your gov't, and that without the interference of the United States, egypt would be better off?


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## Mahaodeh

Outlandish said:


> Thank you for this cultural topic which is very important and is often raised in my country.


 
You can say that again 




Outlandish said:


> There are feelings of dismay at the way the foreign press and media treat the problems of the Arab world and my country Egypt. People think that on purpose twisting of my country and other countries affairs in foreign press is a reality. The strange thing is that unconnected foreign newspapers from countries far away from each other just repeat the false information first given. The reason is the political agendas of these journals' countries.


 
This is the general belief among the population of not only Egypt, but all the Arab countries.

Reports you hear or read about local issues in international media generally misinterpret, misinform, misrepresent and misquote almost every single thing! When this happens all the time, people cannot help but feel that it's deliberate.

Of course, some Arab countries are treaded more unfairly than others.




Outlandish said:


> Yet, some news, usually far from politics, are fully presented in foreign newspapers more than in national ones.


 
Yes, that is generally true all over; as a matter of fact, most people I know switch to another news channel when local non-politics and current affairs related matters start; or they just dismiss the 'local news' pages in newspaper. Maybe the reason for that is that there is so much political turbulence and current affairs issues that other issues begin to seem trivial.




Jacobtm said:


> In my country, egypt is treated very oddly, it seems to be able to play whatever "character" the story calls for.


 
Yes, although I'm not Egyptian but I see that in from Western media. But sometimes the Egyptian government is the one that acts oddly - in a manner either not expected or expected but not accepted by Arab people in general.




Jacobtm said:


> In Egypt, is there much feeling that the United States is deeply involved in propping up your gov't, and that without the interference of the United States, egypt would be better off?


 
Ho ho ho, you hit the nail on the head; but to be fair, Arabs feel that about ALL the Arab governments, not just the Egyptian government.

Hence, the attitude towards Egypt is indeed odd. The Saudi Arabian government, as an example, is as 'propped' as the Egyptian one, but the Western and especially the US media attitude is _always_ negative.


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## Outlandish

Jacobtm, your diagnosis is stunningly accurate. The Egiptians and the Saudis are strong allies of the US and many western countries, they respond to western pressure and unfail their expectations. This friendship is so ften betrayed and the Egyptians can't help but ask, 'why?'. They got themselves accustomed to the fact that  their friend is a moody friend.


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## ernest_

Hi. In Catalonia, the foreign press is followed with great interest, but only when it says something about us. National newspapers often discuss articles about Spain or Catalonia that have appeared in foreign newspapers.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Outlandish said:


> Jacobtm, your diagnosis is stunningly accurate. The Egiptians and the Saudis are strong allies of the US and many western countries, they respond to western pressure and unfail their expectations. This friendship is so ften betrayed and the Egyptians can't help but ask, 'why?'. They got themselves accustomed to the fact that  their friend is a moody friend.



You must remember that the press in Europe (or the E.U. at least) is free, within limits, to say what they like and are not forced to follow official line, unlike some other places in the world.

The regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia are both profoundly undemocratic, and in many ways horrific violators of peoples basic human rights. Just because the U.S. may have a close strategic relationship with them doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be able to criticize what we see as "wrong" in those countries, as of course you should be to criticize what you see as "wrong" in ours.


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## Miguelillo 87

Pedro y La Torre said:


> The regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia are both profoundly undemocratic, and in many ways horrific violators of peoples basic human rights. Just because the U.S. may have a close strategic relationship with them doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be able to criticize *what we see as "wrong" *in those countries, as of course you should be to criticize what you see as "wrong" in ours.


 
Media is not there to inform what it see, but for inform facts, the desition if it's wrong or good, YOU have to take it.(based in the info they give you) that's why media should give all the fact so you can have a very informefd opinion (and closest of reality) 

Media should be impartial, unfourtunatly it seems media NOWHERE follows this escencial rule


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## azeid

Jacobtm said:


> But in countries that are perhaps less self-centered than the US, how do you relate to foreign press? Are newspapers and magazines from other countries widely available? Does your domestic press focus sufficiently on other parts of the world? How do you feel the foreign press treats your country?


Nice topic,
In Egypt, you hardly find any foreign newspaper except in the touristic places.This is not because they are banned but mainly because most of readers can't afford daily/weekly cost of buying newspapers.Even for the local paper-news, there is a noticeable drop of selling numbers.
Most of people depend on TV and internet to get the the local and international news.
People are interested in listening to the news about their countries in western media and so the local media is always showing news from CNN,BBC,AFP,FOX ...etc and also discuss articles or news mainly from American and European newspapers like NY times,Guardian,The Independent,LE Monde...etc.
I can say that the Egyptian/Arabic reader is more interested in international news than most of others are interested in Egyptian/Arabic ones and this is due to the fact that the most of powerful countries all over the world like (US,Britain,France,Germany,Italy,Russia,China,....................................) are playing roles in our countries more than the local governments
and as the middle east is the hottest place nowadays in the world.

The fact, There is no unbiased media.
The effect of governments on the media is obviously clear when they are talking about the Arab world.
Each government has its own agenda and so the media.



Jacobtm said:


> Outlandish, do you regularly read anglophone news sources? In my country, egypt is treated very oddly, it seems to be able to play whatever "character" the story calls for.
> 
> Sometimes it's a faithful ally in the war on terror, the example of a muslim country that can work with western powers, make peace with israel, and help against the fight against "radical islamic terrorism".
> 
> Other times it's the byproduct of American imperialism; just another non-democratic government that we've propped up for it's convenience as a non-hostile regime in the region, at the expense of its people.
> 
> Yet other times, it can be seen as a threat, since the unfree nature of the country (our press almost always portrays Egypt as unfree, though I have no idea how accurate that is) can be seen as fostering the exact "radical islamic extremism" that we're trying so hard to confront. In this case, blame can either be shifted on the US gov't, or can be shifted totally on egypt, depending on the prespective of the news.
> 
> In Egypt, is there much feeling that the United States is deeply involved in propping up your gov't, and that without the interference of the United States, egypt would be better off?



You catch the fact my friend.
US and most of European countries are supporting the dictators in Arab world and so those dictators will do anything to prove their loyalty to the US and others like Britain, France,...... and so you will find your media showing them as heroes and the examples for whatever they want to be but when US disagree with them or want to force them to do something, The media starts to show them as dictators and they start to talk about human rights, .... and then those dictators will do what the US order them even if this is against their people willing.
The another fact about the US and the European countries who are talking about freedom !!! that when any local newspaper or media presents news and reports which US don't want to show it to the world.US government is starting to push on those media sources to hide what they want to be hidden like what happened with AlJazeera when it showed reports about the war in Iraq and sometimes they killed the reporters with cold blood to deliver the message.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Miguelillo 87 said:


> Media is not there to inform what it see, but for inform facts, the desition if it's wrong or good, YOU have to take it.(based in the info they give you) that's why media should give all the fact so you can have a very informefd opinion (and closest of reality)
> 
> Media should be impartial, unfourtunatly it seems media NOWHERE follows this escencial rule



Media is not and never has been solely restricted to neutral news reporting. 

Let's say a dictator kills 10 people for protesting against his rule. The media reports on the fact. Columnists in newspapers then give their opinion on what's happening. Cartoonists proceed to satire it.

People then make up their minds as to what they take from it.


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## xmarabout

In Belgium, and mainly in Brussels, a very international city, it is more or less possible to find the major newspaper from all the European countries as well as from US (but also from Turkey, Marrocco, Congo, ... the major minorities represented here). Even on TV, first, we can reach most of the TV worldwide through satellite, but even in our national programs (News) we have a lot of information from outside. And, maybe, because it is a small country, it seems that we have more information from the whole world than our neighbours in France.


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## Miguelillo 87

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Media is not and never has been solely restricted to neutral news reporting.
> 
> Let's say a dictator kills 10 people for protesting against his rule. The media reports on the fact. Columnists in newspapers then give their opinion on what's happening. Cartoonists proceed to satire it.
> 
> People then make up their minds as to what they take from it.


 
Columinists and cortoonists are different they are there to show their opinion but based in facts, most of the medias show the facts based on its opinions.

Let's take your example,

A dictator kills 10 people, 5 men and 5 women, 
in a demonstration in downtown these people were killed for have been against the new laws against free expression 
this is the fact, now the media can do that.

A) The tyrant massacred 10 innocent people. who were only there trying to fight for their civil right against a governement which his tiranny doesn't know limits.


B) Ou great President in other act of bravery kill 10 enemies of the nation who wants to go agaisnt a law which help the counry to be a better one....


Now do you see how a fact could be turn into another one, you're saying the same the fact it's 10 people were killed, but thos words innocent, enemies, gives a different situation fot those whgo is reading the newspaper


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## Outlandish

Pedro y La Torre said:


> You must remember that the press in Europe (or the E.U. at least) is free, within limits, to say what they like and are not forced to follow official line, unlike some other places in the world.
> 
> The regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia are both profoundly undemocratic, and in many ways horrific violators of peoples basic human rights. Just because the U.S. may have a close strategic relationship with them doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be able to criticize what we see as "wrong" in those countries, as of course you should be to criticize what you see as "wrong" in ours.




Pedro, you're kidding? Press in Europe is free? Yes, free to spread insulting paintings about Prophet of Muslims, free to intervene in people's private lives, free in exposive content, truly offer some really great news stories many times (political or not), but not to obstruct the political agendas of world powers; concerning this, make sure they are forced to follow official lines
Do you suggest here that the US criticizes these countries for the wrong they do? I might correct this small misunderstanding: great world powers do not take any stance because this stance is right or ethical; What governs their actions and stances is interest *ONLY *not right and wrong. If they truly seek to make things right and fight the wrong, they would have solved the problems of poverty, wars, feuds, illness, etc. On the contrary, they encourage war and feuds and further poverty and depression. Great world powers are the cause behind almost every crisis. They do not do things because they are right, they do them because they have an agenda. I wonder you do not know this very old piece of information! 

This proves that their criticism of their allies is betrayal, they do it when their interest goes against their friendship with these countries. Thus, for their interest they may actually smash every other country under their feet. When they want it, press is then -by all means- just a tool in their hand that offers their prospective and publicizes their agenda. What I have just mentioned was another old piece of information, by the way.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Outlandish said:


> Pedro, you're kidding? Press in Europe is free? Yes, free to spread insulting paintings about Prophet of Muslims, free to intervene in people's private lives, free in exposive content, truly offer some really great news stories many times (political or not), but not to obstruct the political agendas of world powers; concerning this, make sure they are forced to follow official lines



Where is your proof for that? Are you seriously saying that outlets like Fox News follow the official line of the Obama administration or the New York Times followed that of Bush? I think you'll find that you're very much mistaken.



Outlandish said:


> Do you suggest here that the US criticizes these countries for the wrong they do?



Who are you talking about here? The U.S. government? Certain media outlets in Europe disagree with any or all of the things you mentioned above, others don't. It's called freedom of speech.



Outlandish said:


> I might correct this small misunderstanding: great world powers do not take any stance because this stance is right or ethical; What governs their actions and stances is interest *ONLY *not right and wrong. If they truly seek to make things right and fight the wrong, they would have solved the problems of poverty, wars, feuds, illness, etc. On the contrary, they encourage war and feuds and further poverty and depression. Great world powers are the cause behind almost every crisis. They do not do things because they are right, they do them because they have an agenda. I wonder you do not know this very old piece of information!



I don't know what any of that has to do with "freedom of the press".


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## Outlandish

Great world powers are not Obama, they are the real interest groups which control the affairs of a country whether explicitly or implicitly. The American president is not always the decision maker, there are many causes behind his decisions which might be against his will. If Obama complies with these forces, media and press will beautify his picture, if he doesn't, it will not be long until he appears to people in nightmares as a hideous monster through the effect of the press.

As for the other 2 quotations you commented on, I see they are very clear; what's your question?


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## Pedro y La Torre

Outlandish said:


> Great world powers are not Obama, they are the real interest groups which control the affairs of a country whether explicitly or implicitly. The American president is not always the decision maker, there are many causes behind his decisions which might be against his will. If Obama complies with these forces, media and press will beautify his picture, if he doesn't, it will not be long until he appears to people in nightmares as a hideous monster through the effect of the press.



Again, that has little or nothing to do with freedom of the press. Certain outlets in America heap pressure on Obama, others support him, others have an even more radical agenda which they push. What exactly are you trying to say? That the U.S. government controls the media?


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## Outlandish

I'm saying that there are powers either governmental or not which have full control on media and press, a fact.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Outlandish said:


> I'm saying that there are powers either governmental or not which have full control on media and press, a fact.



Yes, the companies which own them.
Certain governments have a weight in certain media organizations, they may even have full time supporters working therein. In most, they do not.

I'm struggling to see the point you're trying to make. The U.S. government does not control their nation's media. If you believe so, you're engaging in conspiracy theories as opposed to real fact.


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## Outlandish

Pedro, all the world knows that western press and media are biased and that they are tools, just tools. There are many books, sites and articles by westerners proving this. I will not enumerate them to you, search for them if you like.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Outlandish said:


> Pedro, all the world knows that western press and media are biased and that they are tools, just tools. There are many books, sites and articles by westerners proving this. I will not enumerate them to you, search for them if you like.



Provide some real proof as to why the Western press and media, all of them, are tools. You made the claims, not me, therefore it's up to you to back them up.
Otherwise, your opinions a little hard to take seriously.


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## Abu Rashid

> Provide some real proof as to why the Western press and media, all of them, are tools.



They are propaganda outlets, who couldn't report honestly on international situations if their lives depended upon it. One only needs to look at the Israel/Palestine situation to know how true this is. Western media constantly report every little life detail about every single Israeli victim, yet when it comes to Palestinians, they report them merely as faceless statistics. This is just the beginning of the disparity in their bias.

Really if you rely on Western media being impartial, then it's probably going to be difficult to convince you otherwise, since it would preclude you from being able to think independantly from the outset.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Abu Rashid said:


> They are propaganda outlets, who couldn't report honestly on international situations if their lives depended upon it. One only needs to look at the Israel/Palestine situation to know how true this is. Western media constantly report every little life detail about every single Israeli victim, yet when it comes to Palestinians, they report them merely as faceless statistics. This is just the beginning of the disparity in their bias.
> 
> Really if you rely on Western media being impartial, then it's probably going to be difficult to convince you otherwise, since it would preclude you from being able to think independantly from the outset.



To state that all are propaganda outlets is simply untrue.
The Irish Times, the Guardian, the Independent, all of these are outlets which reported extensively on the Israeli/Palestine situation and indeed provided in depth detail of Palestinian casualties and analysis of why the Israeli army was doing what it was doing - the London Independent was a rich source of such information.

Of course there were other outlets which took a differing view.
Therefore, your blanket terming of the whole Western press as propaganda outlets when they might conflict with your views strikes me as wholly dishonest.


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## Outlandish

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Provide some real proof as to why the Western press and media, all of them, are tools. You made the claims, not me, therefore it's up to you to back them up.
> Otherwise, your opinions a little hard to take seriously.


It seems you are fond of evidence 
A few years back in time, public opinion polls showed very high rates of pro-war on Irak Americans and Europeans. Not a single person said, 'I can't find any evidence there is nuclear weapons in Irak'- except me-; everybody was anxious to see Irak invaded and its mass destructive weapons removed. Almost one and 800.000 million innocents had to die in order to remove the danger of the nonexistent mass destructive weapons, or rather because media and press implemented the political agenda of the countries which decided to invade Irak.
I hope that the lives of 1.800.000 innocent human beings represent a satisfactory evidence for you. If you think that the press and media weren't tools back then, let me know.

I remember during the time of the last Palestinian uprising, while at least from 7 to 27 Palestinian innocent were shot daily, I decided to rove over some western channels and see how they presented this aggression, I came across three broadcasts talking about holocaust victims and shedding tears on them in sentimental programs with moving background music while narrating the suffering of the victims, ah! I found all three programs in the same time. I didn't continue roving, thank God!
Not tools, Pedro?


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## Abu Rashid

> Reporters sans Frontières gives this list of countries and what their level of press freedom is.
> Are they making it up?



This question reminds me about a statement by Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's "Bin Laden Tracking Unit" regarding the differences between media in the Islamic & Western worlds.



> "On balance, the Islamic media's taste for what the West terms sensationalizing and conspiracy mongering is less than meets the eye. Based on my research, it is apparent that the Islamic media's correspondents and editors work harder, dig deeper, and think more than most of their Western counterparts. This is not to say that the Islamic media do not suffer from sensationalized conspiracy theories, but they probably are no more prone to those faults than their Western colleagues." (Through Our Enemies' Eyes, p. 280)


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## Chaska Ñawi

Revisiting the original question:



Jacobtm said:


> But in countries that are perhaps less self-centered than the US, how do you relate to foreign press? Are newspapers and magazines from other countries widely available? Does your domestic press focus sufficiently on other parts of the world? How do you feel the foreign press treats your country?



To avoid premature closure of this thread, please ensure that your posts are objective and on topic.

Thanks for your cooperation.


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## kirsitn

Abu Rashid said:


> Western media constantly report every little life detail about every single Israeli victim, yet when it comes to Palestinians, they report them merely as faceless statistics. This is just the beginning of the disparity in their bias.



A few examples of the Norwegian media coverage of the latest war in Palestine. While you probably can't read the articles, it should be fairly obvious that the Palestinians are not merely faceless statistics.

http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/01/11/nyheter/krigen_i_gaza/utenriks/israel/gaza/4321981/

http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/01/04/nyheter/utenriks/gaza/hamas/krigen_i_gaza/4243272/

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/midtosten/article2850219.ece


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## jacquesvd

Jacobtm said:


> As an American, I have to turn to foreign media frequently if I want to get detailed coverage about events beyond my country. I also like to read foreign reporting on the US, even though it's not as in-depth as domestic sources it's interesting to get a different perspective on things most familiar to me.
> 
> I regularly read the BBC and The Economist, both British sources with a more global perspective than most American publications. As my foreign language abilities have increased, I've tried to read more Spanish-language publications, especially from Latin America, which is poorly reported on by most mainstream English-language sources.
> 
> But in countries that are perhaps less self-centered than the US, how do you relate to foreign press? Are newspapers and magazines from other countries widely available? Does your domestic press focus sufficiently on other parts of the world? How do you feel the foreign press treats your country?


 
I live in Antwerp Belgium and foreign press is abundantly available (USA: Time, Newsweek, Herald Tribune; UK: The Guardian, The independent, The Econmist; Germany: Frankfurter Allgemeine, Süddeutsche, Die Welt, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Focus; France: Le monde, Le figaro, le point, Italy: Corriere della Sera, Spain: El País) and bought by both tourists and Belgians although I don't know to what extent each. In any case, these publications are available in downtown every day or week also outside the tourist season.
Despite this abundant foreign press, Flemish newspapers give a lot of attention to international events, (Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, presidential or parliamentary elections in the economically/politically most important countries of today)
Being myself an avid reader of foreign press I can say that Belgium hardly ever makes headlines or is even mentioned. The so-called linguistic divide in Belgium (Dutch vs French speaking parts) sometimes gets into the news but the reporting on it is usually oversimple. As for Belgian press reporting on events in other countries and comparing to what I read in the respective foreign press itself, I have the impression that it is usually moderate and not overly biased but, again, often simplifying too much just like foreign reporting on Belgian events tends to simplify too much.   

Foreign television stations standardly available(cable network) include CNN, BBC, two or three French channels, 3 or 4 German channels, Rai, Tve, and all the Dutch stations. However, less than 2% watch these stations. 
 It is not known how many Belgians read foreign press on a regular basis but my guess is that it would not be more than 2-3%


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## mijel

> free to spread insulting paintings about Prophet of Muslims, free to intervene in people's private lives, free in exposive content


All this is perfectly legitimate under a free regime, except for "intervening": I'm not really sure what do you mean there.



> public opinion polls showed very high rates of pro-war on Irak Americans and Europeans


Maybe Americans were pro-war, but Europeans were ABSOLUTELY against, maybe with the exception of UK -which I'm not sure-.
For instance, disapproval rate in Spain and France was 90%.



> yet when it comes to Palestinians, they report them merely as faceless statistics


Have you ever read a Spanish, French, Portuguese or Scandinavian newspaper? I guess you didn't. BTW you should really check the opinion polls on the palestinian conflict made by eurostat. They simply prove you wrong.

Retaking the main point of the post, I confirm what others said about foreign press in Spain: we are only interested in foreign press when we are the focus of the news -which happens quite often since we are the new sick man of Europe, hooray!-. However international news coverage is extensive, especially for Europe (with some newspapers having a separate section for European news), USA and Latin America.
My *personal* opinion is that Latin American coverage is lately very centred on Spanish economic interests and not on political or social events, but this is my personal perception.


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