Research prepared at Harvard University by Jill Carroll of the Christian Science Monitor suggested that, by 2006, the entire US media – print and broadcast – was supporting only 141 foreign correspondents in the whole world. This reflects a catastrophic fall in foreign bureaux, as media outlets have succumbed to a crude commercial calculation: as a commodity, foreign news is high-cost and low-return. Why invest big money in covering the world, when consumers are happy with local news?
