How much do we understand about the world from the news reports we see on a daily basis? In the past, I wrote for GNVPublished ArticlesAs described in the previous section, as globalization progresses and the boundaries between countries become increasingly blurred, it is becoming increasingly difficult to say that what is happening on the other side of the world has nothing to do with you. The widespread use of the Internet has made it possible to connect with people around the world in an instant, both in business and in daily life. This has also greatly increased the need to know what is going on in the world through international reporting. At the same time, it can be said that it is the information transmitted by the mass media that fosters public interest. The world through the lens of self-centeredness is often different from the real world; GNV'sArticles that investigate and analyze the reality of Japan's international press coverage.As mentioned in the previous section, there is a bias in Japan's international reporting. The coverage is focused on regions with strong ties to Japan, high international status, or developed countries. Such biased reporting cannot be said to be reporting the world as it really is.

One factor in ascertaining which parts of the world are important and which are not is the correspondent. A correspondent is a special reporter assigned to a foreign bureau or bureau general who is based in a city and is responsible for reporting and reporting on that area. Correspondents from around the world provide daily news reports, and editors decide each day whether to actually report the news or not. Let's take a look at international reporting in Japan from the perspective of such "correspondents.

Correspondent assignments and volume of coverage by region

First, please see the chart showing the location of the overseas bureaus of the two major Japanese newspapers (Asahi and Yomiuri) and NHK with their correspondents, as well as the amount of coverage by region in 2016.

Volume of News Coverage by Region and Assignment of Overseas Bureaus

As can be seen from the figure, the volume of coverage is high in Asia and Europe, where there are many overseas bureaus, and relatively low in Africa and Latin America. There are branch offices in developed countries and regions with high trade volume with Japan, but few in poor countries. In addition, NHK's News Watch 9 program in 2012 reported only on Egypt in Africa and the Rio Carnival in Latin America during a six-month period.A surveyThis is evident in the There are 55 countries in Africa that receive little media coverage, which is about a quarter of the world's total. However, the reality of the countries is rarely reported. It is more accurate to say that there are no bureaus because there is little news, rather than because there is little news because there are no bureaus. Not having a branch office means that, in the long run, the country or region is biased toward a region because "there is not much worth reporting in that country or region.

News coverage in areas with few correspondents

Although the development of communications technology has made it possible to obtain real-time information from anywhere in the world, it is meaningless for a news organization to exist if it relies solely on such secondary information. What will happen to news coverage if foreign correspondents are not located near the areas they wish to report on?

Each news organization has only one overseas bureau in sub-Saharan Africa. The area they have to cover is so large that they are not able to gather information on most of the countries. Since we can only stay in one place at a time, the areas we can report on are limited, and many news stories have to be sacrificed. So what would happen if a tragic incident occurred in this region? For example, if information were to come in about a massacre in the countryside of an African country, it would be up to the correspondents in the overseas bureaus to go and cover the event. Considering transportation, it could take several days to arrive at the scene. In the field of news reporting, where freshness is often the most important value, it would be fatal if it took a long time from the time of the incident to the time of reporting, and what if another important event occurred somewhere else? It is difficult to divide the few correspondents into multiple locations and utilize them for coverage. Therefore, coverage of the country that was originally planned may be postponed, resulting in inadequate coverage, or evenNot once reported.There is a great possibility that this could be the case.

It is also difficult to cover a region like Africa for a long period of time. This is because the number of correspondents is small, and if they stay in one place for a long period of time, coverage of other areas will be neglected. This is due to the fact thatActual eventsBut when former South African President Nelson Mandela fell ill and became critically ill. Mandela's presence was so important from an international perspective that many news reporters rushed to Africa, which they do not usually visit, to cover the event. They were, so to speak, waiting for the news of Mandela's death.

Journalists covering the ceremony to mourn Mandela's death (by Dscott (CC BY-SA 3.0) )

In order to report the news of Mandela's death, which has earned him worldwide respect, each country dispatches not only reporters but also photographers and other staff members. The hotel in Johannesburg was overflowing with reporters. However, contrary to the reporters' expectations, Mandela kept the flame of life burning longer than they had anticipated. Although they visited Mandela at the hospital every day, nothing happened that they wanted to report. The journalists unexpectedly stayed longer than expected. Some of the reporters had inappropriate hopes because they could not keep so many staff members staying in Africa. And the situation was derided by Mandela's eldest daughter, Macadiej, who described it as "like a condor waiting for the lion to finish eating the buffalo.

So, is it possible to report on areas where there are no correspondents? In such cases, news agencies are often used. News agencies are organizations that collect a much wider range of information than news organizations can provide, and they supply much of the information for news organizations. News organizations report news based on information obtained from news agencies, but the information from news agencies is merely factual and cannot convey the background stories and relationships that the news organization would originally like to report. After all, you cannot get the information you want to gather without actually covering the story.

Reporters are constantly following the news.(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/ flickr: (CC BY 2.0))

To know the world as it is

The assignment of correspondents around the world is determined by their relationship with their home countries and other factors, but it is so skewed that the majority of the world is barely visible in news reports. Although it may not be wrong to tilt the number of correspondents according to region, the current system cannot be said to be reporting the world as it really is. As we confirmed at the beginning of this paper, it is unwise to exclude information that "has nothing to do with us" in an age in which the boundaries between nations are becoming extremely blurred. What is going on in the world today? Correspondents play an important role in bringing the world closer to the true state of news reporting.

Writer: Yusuke Sugihara

Graphic: Hinako Hosokawa