I was not surprised. When I studied journalism at the University of Hawaii 30 years ago, my professors told me that the US media believed that Americans were only interested in domestic news.

There was a brief surge in international news coverage by the US media, particularly in some of the national newspapers. However, as the Internet and social networking have become part of our lives, traditional news media have reduced their coverage of international news and the number of foreign correspondents is dwindling. The excuse is that the Americans do not care about international news.

Interestingly, a recent survey of press coverage and public opinion by the Pew Research Center shows that international news is only popular when there is a local angle.

According to the survey, the killing of Osama bin Laden and its effect on US-Pakistan relations ranked first in reader interest with 27 percent, followed by the Mississippi River floods, 19 percent, and the US economy, 15 percent.

US President Barack Obama's exposition of his Middle East policy interested only 8 percent of readers. The arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, which had 15 percent of the coverage, interested only 2 percent of readers.

The Pew Research Center has conducted regular surveys comparing news coverage by the press with public opinion. In these polls, Americans consistently say they want to know what is going on in the world, provided it relates to them.

We will have to turn to international TV networks, the newspapers and the Internet if we want to keep ourselves better informed of what is going on in the world.

The author is assistant editor-in-chief of China Daily and its chief US correspondent. E-mail: lixing@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily 06/03/2011 page8)