A last thought on "paying attention to events elsewhere." The main reason we don't do this anymore is because they'reno longer in the news. The business model for foreign news coverage has been destroyed. But there's something you can do. "One simple trick," as they say ...
Every time you read a news source, click on the foreign news stories first. Spend the most time on those stories. Keep those browser windows open more. Share them more often on social media. Comment more often. E-mail them more often. And: Click through to the ads.
If readers show willingness to keep their eyeballs on those stories, the market will respond by providing more of them. Our curiosity, or lack thereof, drives news coverage. More foreign news coverage would go a long way toward diminishing our crisis of national self-involvement.
During the Cold War and before the Internet, foreign news occupied about 40 percent of the news hole. Look at the the front page of, say, the @nytimes (today, yesterday, tomorrow, the day after) for comparison. Or any US news organ. Nothing. World is gone.
But not their fault: Their customers don't want the rest of the world. If you show them you do--by reading foreign news, sharing it, and clicking on the ads, maybe even buying what they're selling--you will get more of it. So will everyone else.
I find it grotesque and sad the the Turkish ruling party English-language mouthpiece--in a country not exactly known for press freedom--is a much better source of international news than any US daily. But it is. dailysabah.com
Mind you, don't get too caught up in the editorials. But compare their front page today to the NYT. It's a much better survey of today's global news, isn't it? You'd have a much better sense, if you read it daily, of major news events beyond US soil.
In fact, this would even be true if you read chinadaily.com.cn. Yes, it has a distinct Chinese-propaganda slant--but at least it does run slanted stories about the rest of the world. This gives you a clue that the rest of the world exists.
Our combination of the world's freest press operating under free market constraints has resulted in the strangest thing: If you read only the US press, over time, you'll cease to believe anything but the US exists. Because nowhere else is ever in the news--
--unless it's a story like this: washingtonpost.com/news/voracious…
