The Foreign "Press"

If you visit The Link Room, our extensive collection of Black, National and International Links, you will notice that over the weekend, in our "Foreign News Outlets" section, we added over 60 foreign news sources to our collection of links. And it was a pleasure to do so. Those of you who have done a bit of web surfing over time, have probably already noticed how much "news" is ignored and left out of the reporting and analysis of the American press corps.

Over the weekend we looked at over 100 foreign and domestic news websites to see how various stories were being covered at home and abroad and were absolutely stunned by the biased nature and weak reporting of U.S. journalists and publications, in many cases.

Now, those of you who are familiar with "A Deeper Look" know that I hardly trust the U.S. media but I have to admit that I was impressed more than I thought I would be by the stark contrast I discovered in how the foreign and U.S. media covered the same events and issues. You can "know" something is true but seeing "how" it is true is a whole other story.

At the top of my list were President Clinton's trip to Nigeria, the Russian submarine tragedy, the Middle East peace process and European and Asian economic issues. On these stories, the U.S. "spin" and Western bias are most evident.

But to be frank, there were a few instances where I was struck by how the foreign press missed a few things that the U.S. reporters and editors nailed.

You will notice today that we sprinkled quite a bit of foreign coverage into our News section today. And the consensus over here is that the coverage of world events is so much more complete and nuanced. Please feel free to form your own opinion.

From this day forward, at BlackElectorate.com, you can expect to see a lot more of the foreign take on news in the U.S. and abroad. It should be interesting to see what turns up every day. And if you have any English versions of your favorite foreign websites that are not on our list, please let us know.

It certainly is a new day in journalism...

Cedric Muhammad

Monday, August 28, 2000

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