The elite press,the global system,and foreign news attention

This article presents summary findings from a content analysis of the foreign news coverage of four U.S. elite newspapers. Overall, the pattern of foreign news attention in the elite American press tends to reflect the “relative distances” between the United States and other national news targets. The more proximate another society is to the United States along economic, political, and cultural dimensions, the more likely the U.S. press will perceive its activities to be newsworthy. The country‐by‐country distribution of foreign news largely corresponds to existing hierarchical divisions within the international system. The reported foreign news is concentrated among the economically‐advanced, politically‐prominent, and culturally‐western societies; that is, the pattern of foreign news coverage is western‐oriented, big‐power dominated, and Eurocentric.