Peter Greste challenges ‘parochial’ Australia over lack of international coverage
Freed journalist Peter Greste has challenged Australian editors to ramp up their coverage of international affairs arguing too much of the local media is “parochial” and that audiences will respond positively to more global news.
The Al Jazeera reporter, who was jailed for more than 400 days in Egypt, also used an to the National Press Club today to challenge advocates of press freedom around the world to come together on a set of global set of principles on media freedom called the Universal Media Freedom Charter.
“This will make me quite unpopular amongst a lot of editors,” said Greste. “I am disturbed by the lack of coverage of world affairs. I don’t think we pay sufficient attention to what is going on around us.
“I know that this is largely because editors, pollsters and marketing guys have said Australians aren’t that interested in international news, that they are much more interested in what is happening in the neighbourhood than what is happening overseas.
Editors and owners shouldn’t shirk their responsibilities regarding international news coverage. Peter Greste is right. (I think that young people are taking little interest in foreign affairs. They will when one day they are ordered to go to war.)
International news isn’t going to bring in the Revenue, Pete, when a Kardashian story will pull in a million impressions. It’s no longer about the quality of the news, rather the quantity of impressions.
Besides, surely they are doing a bang up job copying and pasting from Reuters to reach their 4 required daily pieces?
Most local publishers have removed sub editors in the last few years, so investing in “journos on the ground” (outside of annual sporting events) is too costly and those that want international news simply visit those that are trusted on a global scale – BBC, NYTimes, Bloomberg….
@Myriad… you’re stereotyping young Aussies there.. where are you getting your data from?
@Myriad that’s a pretty ridiculous assertion, I think young people are more engaged with world news and Australia’s interests in the world far more than previous generations. A lot of it has to do with how the news is presented. The format has to focus around world content to be engaging. For me personally, I love The Atlantic’s site Quartz as it covers world news, finance and technology exclusively in a format that is short, but links to longer form content on particular items.
@LocalPublishersareajoke – “those that want international news simply visit those that are trusted on a global scale”. Pefect summary of what I just said. BBC goes above and beyond in this area, and it’s clear Quartz are trying to grab a mix of BBC/NYT/BBW readers globally.
I think Peter and myriad need to look at what is on the news in other countries. Australia is not in the remotest parochial. Even our regional news papers have international coverage! We know more about the elections in Israel than what happens in our local gov’t let alone what is happeing in another state.
Maybe old mate Will Colvin should be promoted to Head Of International Journalism at news… shake a few things up?
Hungary has been at the centre of political tensions between US and Russia for months… for example. The US denied entry visas to several Hungarian officials. This week, Prime Minister Orban is facing calls to resign over alleged corruption. For example. Putin’s visit to Budapest a couple of weeks ago caused much interest … and so on and so on. I didn’t learn any of this from Australian media.
Greste is having a lend. The public aren’t interested in foreign cr*p. We should have less foreign news – none at all preferably.
I think that The Magus represents a pretty wide point of view.