The Fearful World of Network News in 2015

by Jim Lobe

If your view of world events outside the U.S. was shaped in substantial part by watching the evening news shows on the three major U.S. networks last year, you’d probably want to stay home.

Terrorism and the bloody wars of the Middle East dominated the network news coverage of the world outside our borders last year, according to the latest annual summary of the authoritative Tyndall Report, which was released just last week. Domestically, it was pretty scary, too, with two of the year’s three top domestic stories featuring Donald Trump’s ugly presidential primary campaign and last month’s San Bernardino massacre, which was allegedly inspired by the Islamic State (ISIS or IS).

As in virtually every year since 9/11, Latin America, Africa, and East Asia (which includes China, Japan, and the Koreas) barely registered in the networks’ universe. Global warming—arguably the greatest existential threat facing our way of life—made only a cameo appearance in the guise of last month’s Paris climate summit, despite today’s New York Times headline: “2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record.” Unfortunately, the Paris summit coincided with the San Bernardino massacre, which received eight times the coverage.

As noted by Andrew Tyndall, the Report’s publisher, in an email exchange today,

This last year has been especially narrow in the range of international stories, in that few stories that are unrelated either to terrorism or to the Middle East (or both) have attracted attention. No Ebola. No Fukushima. The excitement around the new pope is starting to subside. No royal wedding. No Olympic Games. …Europe has received prominent coverage. However, the three biggest European stories (Charlie Hebdo, the refugee crisis, the Paris concert massacre) can be portrayed as spillovers from Mideast tensions. All three of these major European storylines fit neatly into fearful narratives made by domestic politicians.

Tyndall has been tracking and cataloguing the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC each weekday since 1988. That comes to roughly 22 minutes for each network per evening, or nearly 15,000 minutes a year for all three weekday evening shows combined. (The total this year was 14,574 minutes.) His findings are considered the most authoritative publicly available source on network news coverage.

Although citizens increasingly rely on the Internet for national and international news, the network evening news remains the single biggest source, attracting a nightly audience of around 24 million viewers, according to the latest report by the Pew Research Center on Journalism and the Media. By comparison, the average primetime audience for all cable news channels combined is a mere 3.5 million. Thus, the news priorities reflected in the amount of attention the three networks devote to national and international trends and events exert a significant influence on how much of the U.S. citizenry sees the world. In other words, the nightly evening network news offers the closest thing we have to a collective national window on what is happening beyond our borders. Which is why it’s important.

The Highlights

Each year, Tyndall publishes a one-page summary of highlights, including the 20 stories to which the three networks devoted the most time in their coverage. The summary also notes more general findings. In 2015, for example, the three networks provided a combined total of 941 minutes to foreign policy coverage (not to be confused with coverage from overseas). Not only was that a mere 6.5% of total news coverage, it was slightly less than half of the annual average between 1988 and 2014. This could reflect the gravitational pull of the 2016 presidential campaign and/or the perception by network news gatekeepers that the public is increasingly uninterested in or fed up with foreign policy issues.

In any event, here are the top 20 and the combined number of minutes they received from the three networks. Together, they accounted for 3,422 minutes of the three networks’ coverage, or less than 25% of total evening news coverage.

Winter weather                                     377

Donald Trump campaign                     327

San Bernardino shootings                     237

Islamic State declared by ISIS             220

Terrorism in Paris: concert massacre   188

Refugees to the European Union         174

Police: lethal Baltimore arrest             174

Forest fires in western states                161

Boston Marathon bombing trial           160

NFL post-season: deflated balls           145

Pope Francis visits to Cuba and USA   142

Syria civil war                                       136

Iran nuclear program negotiations       132

Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris         132

New York prison escape                       131

Republican presidential debates           123

Hillary Clinton campaign                     121

AMC church massacre in Charleston   117

Germanwings jet crash in Alps              114

Iraq civil war/ISIS in Iraq                     113

Some of the top stories are obviously related to each other, although Tyndall is very careful about not double-counting stories. For example, Trump clearly factored heavily in the Republican presidential debates, but the minutes devoted to his contribution to that debate would not have been included in the category of the Trump campaign itself. The EU’s refugee crisis was obviously related to the wars in Syria and Iraq, not to mention IS.

Thus, among the 20 most-covered stories, the 2016 campaign garnered 571 minutes (Trump, Republican debate, Clinton). But terrorist acts or organizations claimed five of the top 20, at nearly 1,000 minutes (San Bernardino, the Islamic State, two Paris stories, the Boston Marathon trial), and that doesn’t count the civil wars in Syria and Iraq or the Charleston church massacre. Those, plus the Germanwings jet crash, alleged police brutality in Baltimore, the prison escape, and the huge refugee influx into Europe, make for a pretty scary world (not to mention the heavily fear-based Trump campaign itself or other fear-mongering Republicans).

Indeed, the only good news that featured in the top 20 last year was the Pope’s visit, the Iran nuclear agreement (albeit not for Bibi Netanyahu and his followers here), and deflated footballs if you care passionately about Tom Brady. Of course, as Tyndall suggests, by depicting such a frightening world, the networks are—presumably unconsciously—propagating a fundamentally far-right narrative that can only benefit Republicans during this year’s campaign.

A Closer Look at the Numbers

To help draw a more complete picture of the networks’ view of the world outside the United States, I asked Tyndall for the statistics on the top foreign stories of the year. They comprised 41 of the top 150 stories, including nine that appeared in the top 20 cited above. The results:

Islamic State in Middle East declared by ISIS 220
Paris terrorism: stadium, restaurant, concert attacks 188
European Union faces influx of refugees and migrants 174
Pope Francis I visits Cuba and United States 142
Syria politics: rebellion designated as civil war 136
Iran nuclear weapons program prevention talks 132
Paris magazine offices assassination: 12 dead 132
Germanwings 9525 crash in French Alps: 150 dead 114
Iraq: combat resumes after US troops pull out 113
Afghanistan’s Taliban regime aftermath, fighting 85
Nepal earthquake levels Kathmandu: Richter 7.8 70
Metrojet charter flight crash over Sinai Desert 59
Moslems in western nations recruited by terrorists 48
Malaysia Airlines 370 missing: Indian Ocean search 43
Cuba-US diplomacy: relations normalized 42
Air Asia 8501 crash over Java Sea kills 162 39
Zimbabwe nature preserve celebrity lion killed 37
Soccer: FIFA Women’s World Cup won by USA 33
Yemen civil war 32
British royals coverage 32
Global warming climate change: Paris Summit 30
High-speed train on-board attack foiled in Belgium 30
International Space Station mission in orbit 30
Libya: US diplomats assassinated in Benghazi 29
Belgium terrorism: surveillance in Brussels suburb 28
Ukraine civil war: secessionist fighting in east 28
Tunisia terrorism: beach resort shooting spree 26
El Nino current forms in Pacific Ocean 25
Syrian-American immigration: seek refugee status 25
CIA drone kills Americans in raid on Pakistan 25
Diesel engine pollution tests rigged by Volkswagen 24
Cargo ship SS El Faro founders off The Bahamas 23
Israel-Palestinian conflict 22
Cuba-US sanctions relaxed: more trade, travel 22
Syria refugees flee abroad to overcrowded camps 21
Greece politics: referendum on fiscal austerity 20
Hurricane Patricia forms in Pacific off Mexico 20
Syria archeology: antiquities looted, vandalized 20
Vietnam War remembered 20
Nazi Holocaust remembered 19

This is essentially the image that most Americans received from their most popular source of international news. Is it any wonder that so many foreigners are shocked by how little Americans know about their home countries or regions?

There’s obviously some good news in this list—including the normalization of relations with Cuba, the climate treaty in Paris, the International Space Station, the perennial British royals story (maybe that’s bad news, I don’t know), the US women’s victory in the World Cup. Again, this picture is pretty scary. But there are a few things worth noting (and I’m sure you will find many more):

  • The list contains absolutely nothing about China, including its economic troubles, its build-up in the South China Sea, its environmental or minority problems, its crackdown against outspoken dissidents and lawyers— or really the rest of East Asia.
  • A grand total of 22 minutes is devoted to the Israel-Palestine conflict despite the violence that has been going on since October and shows no sign of abating, not to mention the increasingly right-wing nature of the Israeli government or the clear disdain in which Obama and Netanyahu mutually hold themselves.
  • Aside from Cuba, there’s no real mention of anything related to Latin America. And normalization with Cuba—a historic development that effectively ended nearly 60 years of hostility—rated a grand total of 66 minutes on all three networks. By comparison, deflate gate and the NFL got 145 minutes, more than twice as much! At least, the Pope gave it some additional attention, albeit not much.
  • Aside from the tragic death of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s largest continent with a population of a billion people, didn’t exist in the evening news universe. Not even for acts of terrorism carried out by Boko Haram or any other group affiliated with al-Qaeda or IS! This, of course, upholds the long-enduring Victorian notion that the only good things about Africa are its animals.
  • Despite the increased threat posed by the Taliban, as well as the belatedly reported death of Mullah Omar and the decision by Obama to put off a final withdrawal, Afghanistan didn’t make the top 20, receiving a grand total of only one hour and 25 minutes in the evening news for all of 2015.
  • Yemen’s devastating war garnered a total of 32 minutes, ten minutes more than the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Tyndall on the News

I asked Andrew Tyndall to comment on some of these observations, and here are some excerpts of our emailed interview:

Lobe: Did you see any greater effort on the part of the newscasters in 2015 to link the weather or weather-related disasters to global warming than in previous years?

Tyndall: I see no evidence of it. First, because gradual, secular weather events (the drought in California, El Nino in the Pacific) received less coverage than extreme, sudden weather events (winter storms, tornadoes, wildfires, flash floods). Second, because the Paris Summit on Climate Change was undercovered, since it coincided with the San Bernardino office party massacre, which eclipsed it.

Lobe: East Asia appears to have been almost entirely ignored in 2015, despite tensions between China and its neighbors in the South and East China Seas? Was this different than or consistent with coverage of the last few years when these territorial claims became more salient? What do you think are the implications of the lack of coverage?

Tyndall: Yes, the military tensions over marine territorial rights have barely been mentioned. The driving force to make such tensions newsworthy is usually not an editorial decision by news executives, but a political decision by an administration in power. In other words, the news tends to follow the Pentagon, reacting to its initiatives, rather than alerting the public, so that it can understand the issues at stake in advance of a debate over such initiatives.

Over the past 25-or-so years of my database, it is a rule of thumb that Republican administrations tend to be more bellicose in addressing overseas disputes, which leads to newscasts being more active in following them. In other words, we can expect coverage of the South China Seas to escalate if and when the US Navy is dispatched to confront the Chinese military in those waters. Lack of coverage, therefore, is a reassuring sign that we are not gearing up for a war with the People’s Republic.

Lobe: And what do you make of the absence of Africa coverage except for the lion?

Tyndall: Yes, given that terrorism and Islamist insurgencies are popular themes for the newscasts to cover, I would have expected more attention paid to Boko Haram and al-Shabaab. I have no problem with the attention paid to Cedric the lion and the Minnesota dentist [who killed him]. A perfect summer sensation.

Lobe: And Latin America except for Cuba?

Tyndall: With reference to Spanish-speaking Latin America, one of the unfortunate consequences of the success of Univision in providing news to Hispanic-Americans is that the Anglophone newscasts act as though their coverage would be duplicative. Thus, the end of the civil war in Colombia was hardly mentioned. The crisis of legitimacy and narco-corruption of the Mexican government only broke through onto English-speaking airwaves through the figure of El Chapo.

One of the advantages to the publicity and promotion around the Olympic Games is that resources and personnel are on site to cover non-sporting-related issues that would normally be ignored. I anticipate that the Zika virus will be the first of several stories to come out of Brazil this year, to coincide with the Rio Olympic Games.

For Mexican-US immigration policy: see Trump, D.

Lobe: Yemen got only 32 minutes despite the fact that it’s in the most heavily covered foreign region, its depiction as a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the presence (and apparent expansion) there of al-Qaeda and IS? Any comment?

Tyndall: Logistically, Yemen is a very difficult country to cover. Its undercoverage belongs in the same category as Boko Haram and al-Shabaab. The rumblings of a possible third intifada on the West Bank also received surprisingly little airtime. I ascribe the lack of interest in covering the proxy Iran-Saudi war to two factors. First (as with the South China Sea) is the Pentagon’s lack of enthusiasm for getting involved. Second, the true anxieties associated with turmoil in the region are associated with symptoms (the spread of terrorism and refugees) not underlying causes (struggles for sectarian and regional hegemony).

Photo: Andrew Tyndall

Jim Lobe

Jim Lobe served for some 30 years as the Washington DC bureau chief for Inter Press Service and is best known for his coverage of U.S. foreign policy and the influence of the neoconservative movement.

SHOW 6 COMMENTS

6 Comments

  1. Seems to me the so called proxy war between Iran and the Saudis is more a function of Saudi framing it as such rather than the Iranians doing so. From what I’ve read on this site and others’ opinions the Saudis have more to gain framing it thus, while Iran’s involvement and interest doesn’t rise to the “proxy war” status. Does that conflict really represent Iranian desires for influence and regional hegemony? Don’t the Saudis project their influence more aggressively and overtly in what they are doing?

  2. Since 9/11 (or is it since the Clinton sex scandals? Or maybe as far back as the OJ trial?), the mainstream American news media – especially network news – has been very hard to take seriously.

    My favourite example: Only a permanently traumatized American population could believe all the crap-journalism and op-eds that were written about that “dangerous” Hugo Chavez and a Venezuela called by Obama “a direct threat to the United States.” Even Bernie Sanders alluded to Chavez as a “dead dictator,” suggesting that even intelligent, informed Americans could be kept in the dark about the number of free and fair elections won by Chavez.

    The rest of the world just rolls its eyes at that kind of rubbish. What kind of country prefers to keep its population in panic and mental paralysis instead of well informed?

  3. Thank you Jim Lobe for pulling the Tyndal report together. Wondering if the report is usually sent and/or being taken seriously by the news media in the US, specifically ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC and others? Or the media as a whole doesn’t give a damn or they are part of the same equation with the government with the intent to keeping the people scared, ill informed and uneducated? Isn’t keeping people uninformed the foundation of capitalism?

  4. @Stephen Demetriou, as you may know Sunnies are in majority (700-800 millions) amongst the overall number of Moslems on earth and of course that would make Shias the largest! Saudi by having a Sunny majority, wealth, and being the protector of the holy land for all Moslems has become the representative of many Sunnies around the world. Iran having the majority Shia and Saudi with majority Sunnies they are challenging one another over their political influence in the region, competing over oil revenues specially now with crude oil price being as low as it is, being a better protector of the have nots in the region like Palestinians, who can standup to Israel more effectively and so on! Some of these challenges between Iran and Saudi are due to the unintended consequences of the US FORIEGN policy in the ME over the past 37 years!
    Part of the Iranian foreign policy has been a natural response to the US FORIEGN POLICY since the US has surrounded Iran militarily from the north (the X-states of the Soviets), Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf. In return, Iran has surrounded Israel with their friends in Syria, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hamas for over the past 25 years since the Iraq-Iran war sponsored by the US was concluded in1988. The Iranian FORIEGN policy for their own neighborhood has caused much concern for the Saudis as well as Israelis! Saudis have also made an error by getting closer to Tel Aviv over the past decades thus ligitimizing Iran’s argument that the Ben Saud’s family are not sincere in their relationship with the rest of the Moslems and protecting the rights of the Palestinian people. The Saudis and Israelis may have the backing of the US but the Iranian regime has the general Shia population in the ME who are not happy with the one sided, biased and/or lack of US policy in the Middle East. It’d be interesting to see how the relation between Saudi and Iran would turned out! Let’s hope for the best.

  5. Monty: you also need to take into account the questionable history between Iran and the US. The US-organised CIA coup in 1953 has not been forgotten and the toppling of the Shah in the 1979 Iran Revolution only happened – arguably – because the US wanted it to happen. Even after the revolution, US encouragement of Iraq to wage an 8-year war against Iran plus the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes in 1988 with the deaths of all 290 passengers and crew on board are all events most Iranians remember to this very day.

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