It’s really no surprise that many Americans are using the Internet to find a diversity and depth of news that’s often lacking in the domestic media.
US public turns to Europe for news
journalism.co.uk
The American public is apparently turning away from the mostly US-centric American media in search of unbiased reporting and other points of views. Much of the US media’s reaction to France and Germany’s intransigence on the Iraqi war issue has verged on the xenophobic, even in the so-called ‘respectable’ press. Some reporting has verged on the hysterical — one US news web site, NewsMax.com, recently captioned a photograph of young German anti-war protesters as “Hitler’s children.”
Mr Dennis [of the Guardian] said: “American visitors are telling us they are unable to find the breadth of opinion we have on our web site anywhere else because we report across the political spectrum rather than from just one perspective.”
This article, however, tends to overstate the matter a bit — the large majority of Americans are still passively glued to Fox News, CNN and the like. Those who are searching out the BBC and other international news organizations online would tend to be more active and critical thinkers — a distinct minority of the American population, to be sure. And the assumption that hysterical, xenophobic news coverage in only found in America is just silly.
But the fact remains that it’s much easier these days to actively expose oneself to a wide range of news and viewpoints. If one so chooses. The benefits of this will only come if those who are so informed turn around and work to spread that knowledge to the more passive citizens in society. A more communal and grass-roots spread of news and information is needed to counter the increasingly shallow and corrupt business of mainstream media.