Which country is the most misreported in the U.S. press?
Which country is most routinely miscovered in the U.S. press? Michael Massing asks in an article in the Columbia Journalism Review.
One could argue that most countries are miscovered through undercoverage. At the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com, for example, our emphasis is on being first and best in providing local news.
We strive to provide news that’s relevant and useful for readers, so local and national news usually takes precedence over international stories. We do try to provide a thorough report on world news, but that often involves making digest items out of many wire stories.
Massing’s answer to his question is Mexico, where he has worked as a journalist. He writes:
When it comes to Mexico, U.S. journalists seem interested in only four things: drugs, traffickers, violence, and corruption (with an occasional nod toward immigration). Journalists peddle a sort of drug-war pornography, salaciously and insatiably dwelling on the most lurid aspects of the trade: narcos, gangs, smugglers, pipelines, cells, mass graves, severed heads, torture chambers, dirty cops. Journalists promiscuously quote DEA agents, eagerly accompany undercover cops on ride-alongs, descend daringly into drug-infested neighborhoods, and intrepidly interview members of the drug trade.
Anyone have firsthand knowledge of countries that are miscovered in the U.S. press?
Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
I’d have to say The Gambia. I never read anything about The Gambia. What is going on there?
Venezuela — and the strangling of their Free and Open press.
Literally ignored by the hypocrites of the MSM.
I’ll nominate the United States
Easy - Zimbabwe - If you like to read, a terrific memoir “When a Crocodile Eats the Sun” by Peter Godwin.
Mr. Parker, you wrote: “We strive to provide news that’s relevant and useful for readers” You can’t be serious? Here is a review of a few pictures of recent which used up a large portion of the front page to the omission of relevant news:
kids waiting for the school bus
kids/parents shopping for back to school items
stay at home mom walking her kids
Sauget, Ill smokestacks
a teacher reading to her students
car driving on DD
hospital swine flu tent
Dr. holding swine flu vaccine
a farmer farming
a car accident
drinkers buying alcohol
students writing notes on each other
student using hand sanitizer
farmer holding a box of produce
man smelling a Monsanto tomato
students watching Obama give a speech
a post office waiting to be shuttered
brothers drinking a beer
a student using a computer
seniors receiving meals on wheels
a man smelling a rare bud
Seriously folks, the PD considers this relevant news. What more can I say?
I know I don’t know where I’d be today without that information. Thanks,
Mr. Parker. Tomorrow we’ll probably get kids wearing their golashes or old people walking witwh umbrellas. I wait with bated breath. But what ever you do, since Mr. Wong does not consider Obama’s czars relevant news,
don’t report on Obama’s czars even if Sen. Feingold is asking whether or not they are constitutional.
Well, since we are currently involved in military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I’d suggest we’re not getting a whole lot of real information about what is going on there outside of Military briefings.
I’m not talking about ‘just’ the P-D, I’m talking about big picture reporting. By anyone. You know, old fashioned feet-on-the-street reporting. There are what, 20 million people in Iraq? All we hear about are the few thousand crazies. What about the ones who are going on with their lives?
hs - hate to say it pal, but you should stop watching MSNBC. FoxNews covers Iraq and Afgh almost too much. Funny how the PD has yet to report that Code Pink now suddenly supports the war in Afgh.
>>>”Which country is most routinely miscovered in the U.S. press?”<<<
Honduras.
NOBODY is getting it right.
NO. BODY. GETS. HONDURAS. RIGHT.