This TED Talks by Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, demonstrates visually the warped world view presented by US network television, where Anna Nicole Smith and Britney dwarf all international news except Iraq.

The map above represents the seconds dedicated to news stories by country in February 2007, a month when North Korea announced plans to dismantle its nuclear facilities, there was massive flooding in Indonesia and in Paris the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced its study on the impact of human behaviour on global warming. She attributes this absence of international focus to the lack of foreign bureaus, which have been reduced by half. There are no network news bureaus in India, Africa or South America – home to 2 billion people.

“The reality is that covering Britney is cheaper”.

It would be interesting to conduct a survey that explores that numbers of journalists working at networks and newspapers generally. Anecdoctally, there are less journalists who have to produce more stories but we all know that quantity does not mean quality. It takes time and money to produce quality journalism, especially investigative pieces and while, like teachers, most journalists are not there to make lots of money the declining real wages of journalists impacts of the quality of the news that we receive. It is ironic that in this information age, most online, print and television news is recycled from the wire or worse, press releases.

All I can say is “thank god for the ABC“. Australia’s publicly-funded, advertising-free broadcaster has a loyal and sizeable following and takes seriously its mission to inform the nation. Most of my international news comes from the ABC, which unlike commercial, profit-driven networks, maintains a genuine commitment to investigative reporting, accountability and knows the difference between what’s in the public interest and what the public are interested in.