Interpreters Needed

Into the offices of U.S. newspapers flows an average of 80,000 words of foreign news a day. Most of it ends up on the spike; U.S. dailies use only an average of a little more than four columns (i.e., 3,200 words) of foreign news a day. Why does foreign news get so little space? How good is foreign coverage? How do foreign papers themselves handle the news of other countries? To answer these questions, the International Press Institute this week published a 266-page report titled The Flow of the News, the most ambitious survey ever conducted on the subject of foreign news. I.P.I.'s study involved ten U.S. journalism schools, 177 dailies, 45 wire services, and interviews with hundreds of foreign correspondents, editors and wire-service executives.

The Proximity Key. A reader turns away from a foreign story because of the "remoteness of foreign events from his own community," says the I.P.I, report. "It should be held in mind that proximity --in a geographical sense--is a key element in reader interest." Thus I.P.I. found that readers who devoted an average of 18 minutes a day to reading their paper spent only two minutes on foreign stories, were amazingly ignorant of foreign affairs. More than 56% of those polled could not identify Syngman Rhee, 40% did not know who Stalin's successor was, and only 27% knew which political party is in power in Britain.

Editors and correspondents alike agree that part of the blame for readers' lack of interest rests on newsmen's shoulders: foreign-news writing is often dull. To make foreign news more interesting, more "explanatory writing," "background stories" and "interpretation" are needed.

There is little "conscious bias or distortion in the coverage of foreign news," says I.P.I. "But there is distortion that comes from the absence of interpretation."

"Newsmagazines have arisen," said one newspaper editor, "because newspapers too often failed to give a complete picture of anything at any time." Newspapers and correspondents seldom bring news "home" to the reader. Thus, in U.S. papers surveyed by I.P.I., not a single reader was tempted to read stories with such dull headlines as ISRAELI STUDIES EGYPT PROPOSALS; COMMIE SAYS SOVIETS WANT GERMAN PARLEY.

Sins of Omission. In U.S. dailies, Britain is still far and away the leading subject of foreign news. The coverage of Britain in the U.S. press, says London Daily Telegraph U.S. Correspondent Alex H. Faulkner, "is highly impressive both quantitatively and from the wide range of subjects covered, [although] a picture of Britain that is both adequate and interpreted . . . exists only in a few American newspapers."

If foreign reporting in U.S. dailies is generally weak, it is still better than coverage of the U.S. by the foreign press. "In Britain," says New York Herald Tribune London Bureau Chief Joseph Newman, one of the reasons that "anti-American sentiment is growing [is] the ignorance of an ill-and underinformed British public regarding the causes and facts of daily developments in the U.S. . . . With few exceptions, the British press has whittled its foreign news down to the vanishing point." British readers are unable "to follow the major events in the United States and to express any intelligent opinions about them."

In Italy, reports the New York Times Rome Bureau Chief Arnaldo Cortesi, the press "is remarkable in that there is not a single Italian newspaper that has an anti-American bias," except Communist and Fascist papers. But the "sins of omission" are so great that an Italian who reads largely feature stories "would inevitably reach the conclusion that everyday life in the United States is centered on beauty contests, divorce and the scandals of cafe society."

Some editors blame correspondents for weak spots in coverage, while correspondents in turn severely criticize editors for not giving enough space to foreign reporting. "I do not know what happens to an American reporter who is assigned to foreign fields," says one editor. "Before very long his stories take on the same old mediocre handout--and sometimes propaganda--slant." Adds another editor: correspondents often "write like foreign ministers."

From the wealth of facts, figures and opinions in the report, one conclusion is clear: if the news were better-written, with more interpretation and explanation, then more editors would print it--and more readers would read it.

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