Time magazine's London Bureau chief Jef McAllister told the audience at his Poynter Fellowship Lecture that Americans are oblivious to the growing displeasure with the United States around the world.

Ignorance of world news could
imperil the nation, says journalist

Increasingly, the American public is paying less attention to the world beyond the U.S. borders, and this "closing of the American mind" may ultimately make it impossible for the nation to maintain its status as the world's only superpower, warned J.F.O. ("Jef") McAllister, Time magazine's London Bureau chief, during a Feb. 20 talk as a Poynter Fellow in Journalism.

McAllister, a graduate of Yale College and the Yale Law School, returned to campus to speak on the topic "Running the World Without Really Trying: The Decline of Foreign News in America and Why It Is Dangerous." A former White House correspondent and Washington Bureau chief for Time, he has also covered the State Department and served as a diplomatic correspondent for the magazine.

Despite the shock of 9/11, which demonstrated the nation's vulnerability to terrorism, Americans have been "overconfident" about the United States' role and status in the world, McAllister told his audience in a William L. Harkness Hall classroom.

This overconfidence is both a cause and an effect of Americans' disinterest in and ignorance about the rest of the globe, argued McAllister, noting that, "When you're rich and powerful -- rich and powerful enough to be, in a way, the center of your universe -- it's hard to stay attuned to the threats that may be emerging at the far corners of your domain." He noted that throughout history, empires have fallen for failing to take heed of emerging threats and for being ill informed about developments taking place outside of their sphere.

McAllister said American disinterest in foreign affairs is evident in declining coverage of international news by the U.S. media. In 1989 -- the year the Berlin Wall fell -- the three major network newscasts (ABC, CBS and NBC), presented 4,000 minutes of coverage from foreign countries, he noted, whereas only 1,400 minutes were devoted to foreign news in 2000. That figure rose to 2,000 minutes after Sept. 11, 2001, and to 4,000 minutes in 2003, he added, with coverage in the latter year geared almost exclusively to the war in Iraq.

"Beyond Iraq, network's international reporting was negligible," said McAllister, noting that because of America's role in the war, Iraq does not qualify singularly as "foreign" news. He noted that during the year 2003, 284 minutes of network news coverage was devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; 80 minutes to Afghanistan; 39 minutes to the global AIDS epidemic; and 15 minutes to global warming.

"Why did the networks turn inward?" McAllister said. "A combination of geo-strategic luck and market forces. Of course, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the instinctive notion that survival depended upon knowing about foreign countries in a dangerous world faded." He added that networks were "all taken over by big conglomerates which started taking a look at their news divisions" in relation to how they "contribute to the [network's] bottom line."

McAllister told his audience that major news networks "essentially have no foreign correspondents anymore. ... The networks buy packages of footage produced by independent companies like Reuters or the Associated Press, and they have their correspondents do voiceovers," he said. "They are packagers, essentially, not real reporters. They don't break news; they don't investigate and they don't get any air time anyway."

Television news is not the only medium offering less world news coverage, McAllister said. "On the average U.S. newspaper, foreign news fell from 10% of the daily budget in 1971 to roughly 2% in 2001," he said. He noted that one news magazine, U.S. News & World Report, actually has no foreign correspondents.

Today, many Americans are turning to the Internet and the radio for news, noted McAllister, adding that the business press does report sufficiently on foreign affairs.

To illustrate the American public's ignorance about the world, he cited a 2002 National Geographic Society survey that showed that only 30% of the 18- to 34-year-olds questioned were able to identify the Pacific Ocean on a map; half could not locate India; and 85% could not distinguish Iraq. Even more startling, 11% could not locate their own country, McAllister said.

The lack of foreign news reporting, the journalist maintained, is in part due to hesitancy by the mainstream media to report bad news and to be too critical of America.

What results is a "kind of false serenity" on the part of Americans "about how things are working in the world," McAllister stated. "I think Americans think things are going better in the world -- that we're [the United States] held in higher respect and that our allies trust our leadership -- than is the case."

He pointed to a recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey that demonstrated that anti-Americanism "is deeper and broader now than any time in modern history." The poll found that in five of seven NATO countries, most respondents wanted "a more independent stance toward the United States" and that in seven of eight Muslim countries, most believe the United States might be a military threat to their nation. Furthermore, he said, in the same poll, 31% of Turks said they believed suicide bombings against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq were justified -- an opinion shared by 46% of Pakistanis, 66% of Moroccans and 70% of Jordanians.

"I just don't see evidence that Americans are grasping that these sort of shifts are taking place in world opinion, which is not surprising, because they seldom get told about them," said McAllister.

The journalist said there were some positive signs in American society that bucked the trend toward insularity. Some local newspapers are participating in exchanges that send American correspondents abroad and bring foreign journalists to the United States, he said, and many U.S. universities are promoting international study and experience. He mentioned that Yale -- with its various publications and websites focusing on international affairs and its World Fellows Program -- is in the vanguard in its international outlook.

However, McAllister said, these trends may not be enough to counter America's myopia.

"Churchill said, 'The United States is like a giant boiler: Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate.' I don't think Sept. 11 quite lit our national boiler in the way Pearl Harbor did for that generation of Americans," he said.

"In December, just two months ago, more than 40% in a survey said the United States should 'mind its own business internationally,' which is the highest level of isolationist sentiment since the Vietnam War," noted McAllister. "I hope it does not take further suffering, more Sept. 11ths, to get our boiler lit, to realize that we cannot any longer 'just mind our own business internationally' or tune out the world. But I fear it might be the case."

-- By Susan Gonzalez

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Noted critic and artist Robert Storr named next dean of School of Art

Two faculty receive prestigious prizes

• Joseph Roach wins Mellon Award for studies on world performance
  
  
• Joseph Schlessinger gets David Prize for work on cancer treatment
  

Brothers' gift to renovate site of their former athletic glory

Yale licenses ovarian cancer test technology to LabCorp

Gallery acquires rare painting by Yale-educated artist

Yale donates important set of books to the British Parliament

ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS

• Richard Casten is named D. Allan Bromley Professor
  
  
• Peter Swenson is new Charlotte Marion Saden Professor
  

William Clyde DeVane Medals are awarded to two scientists

Ignorance of world news could imperil the nation, says journalist

Event explored 'Youth and the Future of U.S.-Islamic Relations'

Doll exhibition marks Japanese celebration of 'Girls Day'

Museum hosting talk on Connecticut day trips, annual 'Fiesta Latina'

Chinese Christian art is featured in Institute of Sacred Music exhibit

Study suggests people may learn best on an empty stomach

VaxInnate officials to speak in next event of seminar serie

Volunteers sought for Ob/Gyn's Kronos Early Estrogen Prevention Study

Competition aims to educate campuses nationwide about recycling

Yale Books in Brief

---

Bulletin Home|Visiting on Campus|Calendar of Events|In the News

Bulletin Board|Classified Ads|Search Archives|Deadlines

Bulletin Staff|Public Affairs|News Releases| E-Mail Us|Yale Home

---