All News Is Local

   The big story  this week for the U.S. news media has been the accelerating move to impeach the current president.
   But that intense focus on the nation's capital means events in other parts of the nation and the world are relegated to smaller time slots in news programs, if they are carried at all.
   Forest fires in California get some coverage, but fires in Australia -- some bigger and more dangerous than those in California -- are ignored.
   Likewise, the political hassle over the prime minister of the United Kingdom is briefly mentioned, but political events in neighboring Canada are not considered disturbing enough to be mentioned on American networks.
   As for political events in other nations where English remains an important language, such as India, Pakistan and several nations in Africa, there is little or no coverage at all.
   Moreover, events in the rest of the world are ignored completely by network TV news programs. Major print media such as newspapers and magazines do cover newsworthy events in other countries, but they too are selective in their choice of stories.
   That's what editors do.
   Similarly, newspapers and TV stations in U.S. cities cover local events -- politics, police reports, fires and feature stories -- that are not dramatic enough to make it to Page One or to national news media.
   All news is local.
   That's an easy concept to grasp when dealing with weekly newspapers or even daily newspapers and broadcasters in cities. But this is also true on a national level, as TV networks and large-circulation publications focus on events in their own countries and less so on what's happening in the rest of the world.
   All news is local.