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Why Does the American Media Suck at Foreign Reporting?
This is based on observations on American news media since I was a child. Growing up in Mexico, we had a somewhat controlled press. It was not overt, but let’s say becoming critical of the ruling party was not precisely the healthiest. So there were a lot of things that were glossed over.
The 1970s were now known as a Guerra Sucia, a dirty war. It was a time when students, for example, went missing. It started in 1968 with the Tlatelolco raid. Leftist groups were persecuted, and while there was a communist party, it was primarily underground. Even as a child, I remember watching my Ps and Qs on the phone, especially if talking with family abroad. Long-distance calls were so expensive that it was mostly hi, goodbye. But dad always reminded us because there was a good chance that call was a party line with a government agent.
There were a few places we all expressed our skepticism. One was jokes, the other editorial cartoons. We also accessed mostly the New York Times and Time Magazine international editions. The latter remains somewhat different to this day than the domestic edition. It’s not just the covers, by the way. Editions have a rather regional flavor as well.
At the time, both had Latin American bureaus. And to this day, the NYT continues to do so. But so did multiple different agencies…