When U.S. President Barack Obama spoke in Cairo this week, he delivered a message of openness. "There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground," he told a global audience of billions. But if he convinced his listeners abroad, a lingering irony will catch up with the president upon his return home: Americans themselves are literally disconnected from foreign news; they are not "listening" at all. Foreign news stations are not broadcast in the United States, meaning that for all but the extended-cable watcher, seeing things from another point of view is, well, impossible.
writes Cyril Blet at Foreign Policy (ht-Richard Sambrook)
Americans have displayed for a long time an insulated stance to foreign news.Given that TV news is still the way that most of the population consume news it is worrying that foreign news channels get such little exposure on the cable networks.
The problem is partly due to the cable companies policy.
cable companies claim that international stations simply do not attract large enough audiences for advertisers to be enticed. Offering foreign news in any but the most expanded cable packages would be a profit-losing venture. Instead, cable companies have invited foreign channels to be featured in a pay-extra international news tier, but the international stations balk at that plan, insisting that they deserve to be wrapped in the same package as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.
Nevertheless the irony of Barack Obama's reaching out is quite telling
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