In the run up to a conflict in Iraq, foreign news websites are seeing large
volumes of traffic from America, as U.S. citizens increasingly seek news
coverage about the coming war.
"Given how timid most U.S. news organizations have been in challenging the
White House position on Iraq, I'm not surprised if Americans are turning to
foreign news services for a perspective on the conflict that goes beyond
freedom fries," said Deborah Branscom, a Newsweek contributing editor, who
keeps a weblog devoted to media issues.
In January, for example, half the visitors to the Guardian Unlimited news
site, an umbrella site for Britain's left-leaning Guardian and Observer
newspapers, were from the Americas.
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, 49 percent of the Guardian's 1.3 million
unique visitors (that's the number of different visitors, not the site's
total traffic) in January originated from the Americas.
Likewise, Nielsen said a quarter of the visitors to the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation's website in January were from the Americas.
"What we're seeing is a lot of searching for news information, particularly
from America," said Richard Goosey, NetRating's international chief of
measurement science.
Traffic from the Americas was not the result of an across-the-board
increase in news consumption, Goosey said.
While news websites in general saw a 3 percent increase in traffic between
December 2002 and January 2003, the Guardian saw a 10 percent increase in
visitors, Goosey said. Meanwhile, CNN's website, one of the most popular
news sites in the United States, saw a small decline in traffic.
Nonetheless, NetRatings reported that traffic from U.S. Internet users to
all news sites was up markedly in February. U.K.-based news sites,
including the Guardian, the Independent and the BBC, saw increased traffic
from American users that month. So did MSNBC and CNN, two of the most
popular U.S. sites.
Jon Dennis, Guardian Unlimited deputy news editor, said U.S. readers are
visiting his site for the range of opinions it publishes, and to engage in
vigorous debate. Media outlets in the United States, he said, are not
presenting the issues critically.
"As a journalist, I find it quite strange that there's not more criticism
of the Bush administration in the American media," he said. "It's as though
the whole U.S. is in shock (from Sept. 11). It's hard for (the media) to be
dispassionate about it. It seems as though they're not thinking as clearly
as they should be."
Dennis charged that, unlike much of the American press, the Guardian site
presents both pro- and anti-war positions. In addition, the Guardian
encourages its readers to debate the issues, through the site's talk boards
and interactive features like live interviews with various experts.
The only debate in the U.S. media is on the Web, Dennis said. "Weblogs are
doing all the work that the U.S. media did in the past," he said. "That's
an interesting development."
In fact, a lot of the Guardian's U.S. traffic is referred by weblogs,
especially Matt Drudge's Drudge Report, said Nielsen's Goosey.
"The new war in Iraq has made world news sources far more important," said
Stephen Gilliard, who posts a lot of foreign news stories to the weblog at
NetSlaves. "While not all news sources are reliable, there is such a gap
between the way Americans see the world and the way other people do that it
is invaluable to use these resources."
There is also a growing tide of criticism of the U.S. media from members of
the media, such as veteran CBS broadcaster Dan Rather.
Rather recently complained to the BBC about the media's lack of access to
government officials, and the growth of "Milatainment" reality shows on
U.S. TV, including ABC's Profiles from the Front Line and VH1's Military
Diaries.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote, "(U.S. TV news) seems to be
reporting about a different planet than the one covered by foreign media."
That's not to say U.S. news outlets are devoid of criticism for leaders'
handling of the conflict in Iraq. Krugman himself is a case in point,
having published a column last week with an opening sentence stating that
"America's leadership has lost touch with reality."
Barb Palser, online media columnist for the American Journalism Review,
believes that many visitors to foreign news sites are finding their way
through links from U.S.-based publications. She cites the example of The
Spokesman Review, a newspaper in Spokane, Washington, which provides links
to outside news services, many of them overseas, as part of its Iraq coverage.
Another source that may be pointing U.S. news junkies overseas, Palser
said, is Google. A search on Google News for the terms "Iraq" and "war"
turned up more than 54,000 links, with articles from Australian, British
and Saudi Arabian news outlets topping the list.
Joanna Glasner contributed to this report.
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