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Location of Foreign Reporting and the Need for Diverse Perspectives in Media
By
Denise St. Clair
Paul Hampton
Jessica Miller
Erin Rushmer


Please address correspondence to:

Denise St. Clair
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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821 University Avenue
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Submitted to International Communication Division, AEJMC – April 1, 2003


St. Clair is a doctoral student In the School of Journalism at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hampton, Miller, and Rushmer are
undergraduate students in the School of Journalism at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. This paper was completed as part of AMP: Analyzing Media
Perspectives, a media literacy group organized and run by the authors of
this paper.



Abstract
This paper addresses the need to examine the media's dedication to foreign
correspondents and their commitment to diversified sources and voices. We
focused on the Iraq – US conflict in our study of ten international papers
from six countries. We then recorded the location of reporting and compared
it to the frequency of specific sources in the story. Our analysis showed
that reporting from the location of conflict provided more variety of
voices and less reliance on US official sources.





In the technologically advanced, globalized world we live in today, it is
impossible to imagine not having a 24 hour-a-day constant stream of
information at our fingertips. However, a daily feed of international news
reported from the location where the news is being made is something
Americans are seeing less and less of. International reporting is declining
and in its place are more stories from key locations, such as Washington
and New York, filled with official sources. As the media industry becomes
more and more concentrated, and reliant on advertising dollars, profit
seems to matter more than an accurate and complete understanding of the
world around us. A victim of this evolving media environment is, without
question, foreign news coverage.
This paper evaluates the realities of international reporting. We believe
that the duty of the media is to provide people with a diversity of
perspectives in order to give media users all the information they need to
form educated opinions about world affairs. It is only in this way that
people can have enough information to adequately inform their lawmakers and
national representatives of their position on international affairs and
thus have a formative role in the way foreign policy is shaped. A diverse
and open media lay the groundwork for democracy. As such, we set out to see
if news media around the world are meeting this challenge. In what follows
we will discuss the role of reporting location and the diversity of sources
to see if reporting from the location of activity increases the diversity
of perspectives offered to readers and what role media ownership has to
play in this process. To facilitate this discussion, we must first look to
the literature.
 Literature Review
Global communications has a long and vivid history. But it was after 1945
that international communications grew tremendously along with the
increasing demand for immediate information (Hachten, 1996, p. 35).  An
estimated 120 regional and national news agencies have emerged since World
War II (p. 38). According to Hachten (1996), "A world news system exists
today because the peoples of Western democracies wanted world news, and the
great independent newspapers, news magazines, news agencies, and later
broadcast organizations have cooperated and competed to satisfy those wants
and needs" (p. 37). However, as time has passed, these entities have been
satisfying their users less and less. To understand why this is happening
and how it is effecting international reporting, we turn to Herman and
Chomsky's propaganda model. This model describes five filters, three of
which relate to the issue of foreign reporting in national and
international news sources.
The first filter of Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model focuses on
ownership and the profit orientation of mass media organizations. The
behind the scenes elements of buying and selling the nation's largest media
entities can have a drastic effect on media output. Large amounts of
capital are necessary to break into the big media market. According to
Herman and Chomsky (2002) newspapers in the 1920s were selling for $6 to
$18 million (p. 4). While modern data on the sale of newspapers is not
included, the laws of inflation dictate that current numbers are vastly
higher than the figures collected in the 1920s.
Such large price tags on today's media ventures narrows the potential
buying field. In the current media environment, eight media conglomerates
dominate the American and global market (McChesney, 1999, pg 1). The eight
conglomerates, all of which are parent firms for larger diversified
corporations, include the North American firms of; General Electric,
AT&T/Liberty Media, Disney, Time Warner and Viacom. They also include the
Japanese corporation Sony, the German firm Bertelsmann, and the Australian
media giant News Corporation (McChesney, 1999, pg 1). According to
Bagdikian (2000) this number is down from 50 in 1983 and from 10 in 1997 (p
xxxi). Included in these conglomerates is the $19 billion Disney-ABC merger
and the AOL-Time Warner merger worth $350 billion, making it the world's
largest business deal (p. xxi). Time Warner has become so large that its
1998 revenue of $27 billion is fifty times larger then the world's fiftieth
largest media firm. (McChesney, 1999, pg 2).
It is this tendency towards mega conglomerates and profit that has a great
influence on media content and international reporting. International
reporting is the most expensive form of information gathering. As Van
Ginneken (1998) notes, a correspondent requires a salary, insurance and
traveling costs, which "for full-time correspondents from most Western
countries, easily amounts to 100,000 dollars a year or more"  (p.
133).  The cost of sending reporters to other countries far outweighs that
of keeping them in the newsroom.
        Another result of conglomerate ownership, according to Wilkin (2001), is
the recent trend of synergy in media (p. 49). Synergy is the combination of
various entities within media, such as production and distribution, in
order to form a conglomerate that has control over most areas of their
media's existence (p. 49). This is more accurately known as vertical
integration. Vertical integration has created an atmosphere in media that
benefits and breeds monopoly. This environment of monopoly has reduced the
necessity of competition. Each super conglomerate controls large quantities
of media product. The continued need for product does not require that
conglomerates compete for individual market share.
        Miller (1974) discusses the concept of completely unrestricted media
leading to monopolistic ownership structures.  Miller (1974) concludes that
in a media environment where monopolistic corporations are present, less
competition will occur (p. 3). This leads to Herman and Chomsky's next
filter. He explains that with less competition the corporations must find
other routes of solid income. They then turn to the business of mass
advertising (p. 3-4).
        Herman and Chomsky present the effects of mass advertising as their second
filter. However, for a more detailed description of how mass advertising
effects news, it is useful to turn to Ben Bagdikian (2000). Bagdikian
begins his explanation of advertising with a history of why advertising has
become so prevalent in today's media.
In the early days of newspaper, competing dailies had to formulate a way to
obtain higher profits than their competitor. At that time, the options that
were available to newspapers were to increase mass advertising or to focus
on hard, quality news. The result was newspapers that focused on harder,
more concise news coverage generated a larger reader base than those that
focused more on mass advertising to generate a profit. After competition
was eliminated by conglomeration, the remaining newspapers no longer had to
vie for readership. They were able to switch from the more costly hard news
to the high-profit business of mass advertising without damaging their
readership (Bagdikian, 2001, p128-129).
        Bagdikian continues the analysis of mass advertising with the effects it
had on modern news sources. As mass advertising grew, newspapers had to
tailor their content to reach the largest number of potential consumers. To
do this, newspapers reduced the political slant of their content.  As a
result, newspapers began to abandon their left or right political views and
present "middle of the road," non-controversial news (Bagdikian, 2001, pg
129-130). This type of news focused less on good, sharp interpretive
reporting and more on stripped-down reporting of the facts. This was done
to appeal to the "average" citizen and thus create the largest possible
number of readers while offending the smallest percentage of the public. A
large reader base was crucial to generating the most advertising dollars
because companies could place ads in a newspaper and have confidence it
would be seen by the widest possible audience (Bagdikian, 2001, 129-130).
        This new approach to news has detrimentally effected international
reporting. As news became a representation of bare facts, the need for
in-depth gathering of information disappeared. The newspaper's goal was not
to uncover a truth that was previously hidden, for that may offend, but
instead present the information that is accepted and easy to obtain. This
meant sending reporters to the location of foreign events was no longer
advisable. Instead the media discovered it was easiest to go directly to
the source they wanted to present – the government.
        The pursuit of official sources for news is Herman and Chomsky's third
filter of the media. The sourcing of news is an important issue that must
be discussed to understand why international reporting has decreased. To
maximize profits in today's media business the news operations need a
steady, cheap flow of easy access sources. Therefore, they will concentrate
their money and effort on the official information engines of the White
House, The Pentagon, and other government installations (Herman & Chomsky,
2002, p. 21-22).
        The government gladly complies with the need for information by creating
large media departments to manufacture, filter, and distribute the news to
the media in a timely and painless fashion:
To consolidate [its] preeminent position of sources, [the]
government…[goes] to great pains to make things easy for news
organizations. They provide the media organizations with the facilities in
which to gather; they give journalists advance copies of speeches and
forthcoming reports; they schedule press conferences at hours well geared
to news deadlines; they write press releases in usable language; and they
carefully organize their press conferences and photo opportunity sessions
(Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p. 22).

This form of information gathering is cost effective. The profit driven
conglomerates are well served by the ease of information gathering from
official sources. "In effect, the large bureaucracies of the powerful
subsidize the mass media, and gain special access by their contribution to
reducing media's cost of acquiring the raw materials of, and producing,
news" (Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p. 22).
        Because of this reliance on official sources, most of what is termed
"international news" comes from a few dominant locations.  According to Van
Ginneken (1998), "the most influential news-gathering organizations have
their headquarters in New York, London and Paris" (p. 129). As Hachten
(1996) notes, New York and Washington DC draw reporters from over 70
countries (p. 127).  Reliance on government sources, particularly in
Washington, lessened the need for correspondents abroad. For instance, Cook
(1994) writes how foreign news was relayed to the American public during
the 1991 Gulf War:
In the first two months of the Gulf Crisis, the White House was favored for
the lead story with strong emphasis upon the person of George Bush, front
and center; the State Department was an important location for reaction to
lead stories from abroad and stressed official policy statements; and the
Pentagon newsbeat, second for second, was actually the best-represented,
with particular attention to matters of method and expertise. These three
newsbeats together were responsible for 52 percent of the overall airtime
from domestic newsbeats and a staggering 79 percent of the domestically
derived lead stories on the crisis. Given the possibilities for
coordinating the 'line of the day' through the White House Office of
Communication (Maltese 1992), the administration was able to dominate early
coverage (Cook, 1994, p. 124).

        The final influence on media and foreign reporting is not directly stated
in Herman and Chomsky, but is key to this discussion. This is the influence
created by government ties with the media.
News media have become increasingly dependent upon officials in Washington
because of their accessibility. The strict use of political officials gives
the government the opportunity to control the media coverage of foreign
activities. The concentration of coverage in such a limited area inevitably
raises questions regarding the reliability and quality of foreign
news.  While the Associated Press and other news agencies maintain that
they gather plenty of foreign news but the readers and viewers are not
interested, critics say people are uninformed because of the lack of
reporting (Van Ginneken, 1998, p. 127).
        The correlation between sourcing and international news is apparent.
Foreign news is expensive, and it is clearly cost effective and timely to
get the party line on any foreign event from the White House or Capitol
Hill. Therefore, media bodies are unlikely to risk profit, or time, when
large, seemingly reputable, institutions will provide them with information
for relatively no cost. With the ease and low cost of gathering information
in this way, foreign reporting may be viewed as unnecessarily expensive,
and therefore, cut.
        Media sources that are in frequent contact with government officials and
spokespeople often create a working relationship that the media will try to
protect (Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p. 22). Because of this, sources that can
be enlightening, but critical, may be avoided to protect the media's
relationship with their sources, and therefore, their access to information
(Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p. 22). "Critical sources may be avoided not only
because of their lesser availability and higher cost of establishing
credibility, but also because the primary sources may be offended and may
even threaten the media using them" (Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p. 22).
        This can be viewed as one barrier between news reporters and foreign
information. If information coming directly from a foreign source or
country is contradictory or damaging to the official source of the home
country, reporters and news organizations may refuse to use it in order to
protect the access they have to these domestic official sources.
        A different relationship between the media and the government concerns
corporate integration. Here, the important element is horizontal
integration. Horizontal integration occurs when a large conglomerate
purchases a company that is not related to the parent company's original
focus. One example of how this can interfere with media content is provided
by Wilkin. General Electric owns NBC and a number of cable stations and
Internet sites. However, they also receive government defense contracts of
$40 billion a year (Wilkin, 2001, p. 49). The question becomes, how can a
company that is receiving substantial profits from the government actively
scrutinize them?
        The implications of government or big business ties through horizontal
integration are hard to quantify. However, it can be assumed that
conglomerates that profit from the government as well as media will be more
selective in their coverage and information gathering. Again, we return to
the fact that the easiest way to cover sensitive subjects without offending
governmental sources is to accept the information being presented by them.
This eliminates the need for foreign reporting and therefore, foreign sources.
        With the influence of profit, advertising, and protection of government
interests, information gathering has greatly changed. The unfortunate
reality is that with all of this information it seems clear that a major
consequence has been a reduction in international reporting.
The number of full-time foreign correspondents in popular news sources
dropped significantly at the end of the Vietnam War, and around the time of
tremendous unrest in Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia. Foreign
correspondents were very expensive to support and their safety became a
major issue. Georgie Anne Geyer's lecture "Who Killed the Foreign
Correspondent?" became a metaphor for the reality of the decline of foreign
correspondents due to safety concerns, and the problems with covering
foreign news away from the region of activity. Newspapers and television
news stations became increasingly dependent upon news wire stories from
sources like Associated Press (AP), de l'Agence France-Presse (AFP), and
Reuters. Van Ginneken (1998) notes that with satellites and the Internet,
it is cheaper for media organizations to rely less on foreign
correspondents and more on news agencies or syndication services (p. 133).
        Thayer emphasizes the importance of maintaining foreign correspondents on
site to always be available for newsworthy events:

The absence of coverage of [remote] regions is usually a reflection of the
skeletal resources that major media organizations devote to foreign
coverage. And that is a decision often dictated by the business side. The
Afghans and Cambodians, after all, aren't likely to be promising
advertising targets or subscribers. Therefore, the argument goes, there is
little 'reader interest.' And, in the absence of staff journalists based in
such places, it can often appear that there is little of newsworthy
significance. But, as the events of September 11 made clear, this is not
necessarily true. There are important stories to tell and it is crucial for
news organizations to be prepared to cover news properly when events demand
(Thayer, 2001, p. 29).

        Freelance writers, or stringers, have attempted to fill the gaps created
by the elimination of many foreign reporters. Freelancers must take the
same risks to cover the same news stories, but without the support of major
media corporations. It costs freelancers a higher price to cover
international news because they do not have the security of being on the
payroll of large media corporations. News agencies dealing with higher
costs and smaller budgets use stringers because they are significantly
cheaper than maintaining a full-time foreign correspondent (Hachten, 1996
p. 125). Freelance writers are much cheaper for newspapers and TV stations
to use because the corporations are not responsible for the writers, and
only have to pay them if they want to publish their work.
As Hachten (1996) reports, while the number of American reporters working
abroad increased from the 1960s to the 1990s, many of the reporters in the
1990s were freelancers (p. 125).  A study done in 1993 by Stephen Hess of
the Brookings Institute found that of 404 foreign correspondents working
for US news media, 26 percent were freelancers (Hachten, 1996, p.
125).  Not only are there relatively few foreign correspondents, but
according to Hachten (1996) they are unevenly distributed throughout the
world:
One study found that over half of American reporters abroad were stationed
in 19 European countries.  The vast expanse of Africa, with over 500
million people in [54] countries, is very thinly covered by a declining
number of Western journalists concentrated in Johannesburg and Nairobi (p.
126).

        Although foreign news in general is lacking, during a crisis, journalists
flood areas where correspondents are not normally stationed and a seemingly
endless stream of news begins.  "Whenever a major crisis breaks out at a
considerable distance from places which are routinely covered by
correspondents, large numbers of foreign journalists may try to get there
as fast as they can" (Van Ginneken, 1998, p. 135).  These "parachuted"
journalists lack the resources necessary to do their jobs.  This leads to
rumors and unreliable facts being exchanged by the journalists as they try
to find the facts (p. 135).
        Barry Rubin (1977) comments on the difference between foreign
correspondents consistently covering an area and reporters who appear on
the scene just after
"news" has occurred:
The growth of faster news-gathering and transmitting technology has often
added to this erosion as well as to the expenses. Correspondents can
be…spread thinner-assigned, for example, responsibility for all (or half)
of Africa. Not only may the     correspondent have less knowledge of his beat
and less time to spend there but also must leave it unattended as he covers
stories elsewhere (Rubin, 1977, p.12).

        Parachute journalists are more attractive to producers because they are
less expensive than full-time foreign correspondents The decline in
newspaper readership, and the increase in popularity of television news,
has contributed to the decrease in consumption of foreign news. Moisy notes
a study indicating the decrease of foreign news stories on television from
35% in the 1970s to 23% in 1995. The amount of airtime given to these
stories has decreased in the same time frame from 45% to 13.5%. A major
factor in the decline of foreign stories is due to the decline of
correspondents working outside the domestic front (Moisy, 1996, p. 9).
In the late 1980s and early 1990s the relative amount of foreign news
seemed to be decreasing.  Hachten reports that, "a study by Michael Emery
found that during late 1987 and early 1988, the percentage of foreign news
in major US daily newspapers 'continues to decline at an alarming rate,
with editors and publishers devoting an embarrassingly small number of
columns and a tiny fraction of their vast resources to international events
affecting this nation's future'" (p. 127).   The average person does not
have enough information about world events in places outside the media
centers of the Western world to care about foreign news.   As the
Associated Press' Mort Rosenblum describes it:
 From 1960 to the 1980s, forty independent African countries joined the
world community.  In 1989, US news organizations paid less attention to all
of them put together than to the trial of Zsa Zsa Gabor for slugging a
Beverly Hills cop.  Or to a few California grey whales trapped in Alaskan
ice.  And that was when we were watching closely (Van Ginneken, 1998, p. 143).

        The decrease of the use of foreign correspondents and the increased use of
wire services, freelance reporters, and government sources, has eliminated
a significant number of perspectives in foreign news stories. Foreign
correspondents became important for their insight into the countries and
regions from which they were reporting. But without the consistent on-site
coverage of foreign news, the stories now permit greater dominance of
government sources in the media.

 Hypotheses
        There are many factors leading media today to concentrate on the use of
official sources. As mentioned above, these news organizations would prefer
to provide a moderate viewpoint so not to offend the powers in place. As
such, particularly within the profit-driven media systems of the United
States and Europe, we would expect that there is a greater reliance on
official sources. Reporters in the Middle East, the location of the
conflict, have greater access to a broader range of sources, particularly
non-official sources. Also, because they have a better understanding of the
context of the situation and, because they are on site, they have more of
an opportunity to seek out these non-official sources. Therefore, stories
reported from the location of the conflict are more likely to be diverse.
H1: Articles written from the Middle East will provide more diverse sources.
        The literature discussed above shows there is an overwhelming dependence
on official sources from dominant locations, such as Washington, New York,
London, and Paris. If the majority of reporting is coming from these
dominant locations, it can be expected that the official sources housed
there will control the content of the media. If the reporting is not
occurring in these dominant locations there is likely to be a decreased
tendency to rely on such official sources.
H2: The farther the location of reporting is from the Middle East, the
heavier the reliance will be on official sources from dominant locations.

 Methods
Data. To test our hypotheses, we used an original dataset. From the period
of September 13, 2001 to January 15, 2002 we conducted a content analysis
of front page news coverage of the then potential war with Iraq. We began
on September 13, as it was the day after US President Bush addressed the
United Nations urging them to take action against Iraq, which initiated a
major international debate and dialogue. We chose to stop the analysis in
January after we found an established pattern in the data. Front page news
coverage was used assuming these are the stories the average reader is most
likely to see and read. In total, 20 newspapers from around the world were
coded noting the location of reporting and the sources used. For this
analysis, we chose to evaluate ten news sources for the period of October
17, 2002 to January 1, 2003. (For a complete list of the news sources
analyzed see chart 1.) In total, 450 articles were evaluated, 420 of which
noted a location of reporting. These articles cited 2,183 sources.
Inter-coder reliability testing is currently under way for these data.  For
this paper, sources and locations were collapsed to facilitate the analysis.

Variables. To evaluate location of reporting we created three collapsed
variables. Other sources were noted in Asia, South America, Central
America, and Vatican City. However, there were not enough occurrences to
warrant effective analysis.
US.  This variable includes all US locations. The majority of the US
locations reported were New York, resulting from the focus on the United
Nations, and Washington. Also, all US military bases both domestic and
abroad were included in this category.
MIDEAST. This variable is comprised of all locations that exist within the
Middle East, as well as those of Arab North Africa. These are included in
the Middle East variable for geo-political reasons.
EUROPE. This is a collection of all European locations. London was the most
cited location in this group.
        In terms of sources, several collapsed variables were created.
US OFFICIAL SOURCES. This variable is comprised of President Bush, all
members of the administration, all officials and aids associated with the
administration, all military personnel, US ambassadors, and all members of
congress and other elected officials.
IRAQ OFFICIAL SOURCES. Here President Saddam Hussein, all members of his
administration, all military personnel, and ambassadors are included. Due
to the proximity of the conflict to the United States and Iraq, these two
categories were kept separate from the regional categories.
MIDEAST OFFICIAL SOURCES.  This variable is comprised of all administration
and military officials, as well as all elected officials, aids, and members
of the state structure of all other Middle Eastern countries noted in the
data set other than Iraq. This variable also includes OPEC and the Arab
League considering the members of these organizations are representatives
of the administrations of Middle Eastern governments.
EUROPE OFFICIAL SOURCES.  Again, all of the administration and military
officials, elected officials, diplomats, and all associated are included.
Here, NATO is also included. Although not all nations in NATO are European,
the great majority are.
OFFICIAL SOURCES. This variable is a collection of all official sources
from all countries cited as sources in the analysis. It also includes OPEC,
the Arab League, NATO, and the United Nations.
NON-OFFICIAL SOURCES. This includes all United States residents, all Iraqi
residents, and all other residents noted in the news sources. Also, it
includes US and non-US think tanks, US and non-US based non-governmental
organization (NGOs), US and non-US polls, and US, Iraqi, and all other
media sources. Although not all media cited in this analysis, including
that of Iraq, are independent of the State, they are still likely to
represent or note resident voices and other non-official voices, making
them more of a non-official than official source.

Results
        To test our hypotheses we used chi-square tests. To test our first
hypothesis, we analyzed the relationship between the use of official
sources and non-official sources by region of location of reporting. Here
we found that stories written from the United States cited official sources
90.46% of the time and non-official sources 9.54% of the time. Articles
written from the Middle East cited official sources 78.01% of the time and
non-official sources 21.99% of the time. Stories generated from Europe
cited official sources 78.52% of the time and non-official sources 21.48%
of the time. A chi-square test showed this varying treatment of sources by
different news organizations was not produced by chance and is significant
(p. < 0.000001, df = 2) (see table 1). It is important to note, however,
that this test in no way assumes causality.
This provides support for our hypothesis showing that articles written from
the Middle East provide a greater diversity of voices, using more
non-official sources than the United States. Europe uses nearly the same
number of non-official sources, but its closer proximity to the Middle East
than that of the United States could explain this reality.
        Our second hypothesis was tested by looking at the relationship between
the location of reporting by region and the use of official sources from
the United States, Iraq, the Mideast, and Europe. Here we found that
articles written in the United States noted US official sources 71.95% of
the time, followed by Europe official sources (13.96%), Iraq official
sources (9.53%), and Mideast official sources (4.56%). Stories generated in
the Middle East used US official sources only 27.33% of the time, Europe
official sources 4.67% of the time, Iraq official sources 19.5% of the
time, and were dominated by Mideast sources (48.5%). Articles written in
Europe were again dominated by US official sources, but to a much lesser
degree than those stories produced in the United States (41.05%), followed
by the use of Europe official sources (34.74%), Mideast official sources
(14.74%), and finally Iraq official sources (9.47%). The chi-square test
for this analysis was also significant (p. < 0.000001, df = 6) (see table 2).
Again, support for our hypothesis is provided here. The majority of
locations within the US source category are Washington and New York. Both
of these locations are considered prime dominant locations. Thus, reporting
from these locations leads to greater reliance on US official sources
located there.  Moving closer to the conflict, we see a greater diversity
in the use of official sources with less reliance on those from the United
States.
Discussion
        Foreign reporting is a critical element of news gathering. Having a
reporter on location who understands the situation, including all context
and history as well as language and custom, allows a reporter greater
access to a wider diversity of sources. This can be seen in our analysis
with the greater use of non-official sources in non-US locations of
reporting. However, due to the cost of foreign reporting it is still
unlikely reporters will be sent to the locations in which the news is made.
Here, we saw that US-based papers such as the New York Times and the Los
Angeles Times reported 64.52% and 60.47% of their stories from the US,
respectively; whereas they only reported stories from the Middle East
29.03% and 27.91% of the time. CNN, the largest news operation studied
here, provided more diversity in terms of location, but still reported from
the US 52.08% of the time. Some foreign news agencies show that there is
the option to diversify location, with Sueddeutsche Zeitung out of Germany
reporting 31.25% from the US, 37.50% from the Mideast, and 31.25% out of
Europe. This is an indication that foreign reporting can, in fact, lead to
more diversity and that regardless of the location of the news
organization, they can provide that diversity to their consumers.
        We also saw in this analysis that reporting from the location of the
conflict provided articles with more of a variety of official sources. In
this case, reporting from dominant locations means the overrepresentation
of US official sources in this case. As illustrated above, without
immediate access to information machines such as the Pentagon and the
Whitehouse, reporters are forced to obtain a greater array of sources. When
articles are reported closer to the conflict, we saw a more equitable
distribution of official sources. However, this still poses a problem.
Diversity in this regard means only diversity of official sources, not
diversity in terms of public voices. Including non-official perspectives is
critical if the media are to meet the challenge of promoting a clear
understanding of current events. Without this understanding news consumers
will not have all the information they need to form educated opinions, and
thus be able to actively participate in their society. In the United
States, obtaining this information is vital for citizens to be able to
affect change through their government representatives. And so the media
have an essential responsibility to provide such a diversity of perspectives.
        The only way to resolve this problem is to have more foreign
correspondents that know the nation, the people, the language, and have
more access to non-official sources – this will lead to not only diversity
of sources, but a true diversity of perspectives. With the priority of news
organizations today focused on making a profit and not providing a public
service, we are left with a narrow view of the world and an incomplete
understanding of world issues. The news organizations should not wait until
conflict occurs, but should work to provide a more complete picture of the
situation while media consumers still have the ability to affect the
outcome. News organizations need to reprioritize for the sake of the public
good. The new focus should center on the increased use of foreign
correspondents.

Limitations and Future Research
        This analysis is a first step in understanding the importance of location
of reporting and the relationship of foreign reporting to media ownership.
However, this study incurred some limitations. First, we were only able to
include ten news organizations in this study. This limits the
generalizability of our finding due to a lack of regional diversity.
Although we initially analyzed 20 news organizations from around the world,
the fact that we only began collecting location data in mid-October and the
reality that location information is not always provided, limited our
ability to further investigate this issue with the data set we compiled.
Second, it is not clear from this data set if the diversity of sources is
positively or negatively affected by the onset and continuation of the
actual conflict.
        Future research should attempt to conduct a similar analysis with a
greater variety of sources from more diverse regions of the world. Also,
further research should be done to see if the patterns we have encountered
here continue throughout the war.
 -Location of Foreign Reporting and the Need for Diverse Perspectives in Media-
6


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 Chart 1: News Organizations Analyzed
 # articles
% of paper
% of total articles with sources
Asashi Shimbun
asia
7
20.00%
8.33%
mideast
11
31.43%
south america
1
2.86%
US
16
45.71%
35
CNN
europe
9
9.38%
22.86%
mideast
35
36.46%
south america
1
1.04%
US
50
52.08%
Vatican City
1
1.04%
96
Guradian
europe
21
52.50%
9.52%
mideast
9
22.50%
US
10
25.00%
40
Jerusalem Post
europe
1
4.55%
5.24%
mideast
13
59.09%
US
8
36.36%
22
La Nacion
europe
3
15.00%
4.76%
mideast
5
25.00%
south america
1
5.00%
US
10
50.00%
Vatican City
1
5.00%
20
LA Times
europe
5
11.63%
10.24%
mideast
12
27.91%
US
26
60.47%
43
Le Monde
europe
8
66.67%
2.86%
mideast
1
8.33%
US
3
25.00%
12
New York Times
europe
4
6.45%
14.76%
mideast
18
29.03%
US
40
64.52%
62
Peninsual News
europe
12
16.22%
17.62%
mideast
37
50.00%
US
24
32.43%
Vatican City
1
1.35%
74
Sueddeutsche Zeitzung
europe
5
31.25%
3.81%
mideast
6
37.50%
100.00%
US
5
31.25%
16