Glocal Challenge #1: Boycotting American News (but not news about America)

Welcome to the first Glocal Challenge of the Go Glocal Project!

Let’s do this!

What does Timbuktu think of you?

Do you read any newspapers based in developing countries ? Me neither. What if we did? How would seeing how the world sees us change the way we see ourselves?

Conor Friedersdorf had an interesting piece in the Atlantic Monthly comparing CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, to Al Jazeera. The American mainstay cable network sites’ headlines were filled with royal wedding news, puppies, and sex, while Al Jazeera had headlines about the press in Iraq, women’s rights in Bahrain, and war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Are we really that self-centered and shallow?

Friedersdorf writes:

If Americans felt an appropriate degree of responsibility for the actions of its government, its citizens would be consuming world news at an unrivaled pace. Human nature being what it is, however, folks whose daily lives are mostly unaffected by the actions of other countries remain relatively ignorant of world affairs. In contrast, residents of less powerful countries have a much bigger appetite for news.

…we’re a nation ultimately governed “by the people,” and collectively, we’ve precious little interest in what’s going on far from our borders.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m above all of this. I check the HuffPo daily . Every night before bed I browse the “most emailed” stories in the NY Times on my iPhone, as if “most emailed” means “most important.”

We’re only as informed as our news, right? But what is “our” news. There’s no reason we can’t seek news beyond our borders. So…

Glocal Challenge #1

Find three quality international news sources (preferably based in different regions of the world) and make them (or at least try to) my sole source of news-gathering for an entire week.

It looks like Al Jazeera should make the list. Do you have any other recommendations? If so, let me know asap?

I’ll report back next week.

 
2 comments
Kyle says:

I’m in. No more Galveston Daily News. I’m reading The Telegraph for the week!

Camden says:

I’m in as well. I think I’ll be checking out Al Arabiya, a middle-eastern news site, Radio Free Europe Radio free, a mostly eartern-european news site, and swissinfo.ch, a swiss news site. We’ll see how it goes- thanks for the inspiration!

Let your voice be heard!

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