Marshall: Smarter stories from beyond our borders
By

    CBS is looking for new ideas. Jon Marshall, who teaches Medill writing labs, asks why the CBS Evening News doesn’t send its reporters to find stories from around the world:

    They tell us plenty about North America, of course, and a bit about Europe, and a lot lately about the Middle East.

    But Africa? I wouldn’t have known it existed after watching the “Evening News” the last two weeks. South America? Nada.

    Zing!

    He argues that we’re missing out on a lot of the important trends in the world, such as China’s rise as an economic superpower and Latin America’s turbulent politics. And besides straight-up importance, Marshall says enterprising, international stories will attract viewers, but I’m not sure – it’s harder to care about people who are far away than people a few blocks down.

    I agree that TV news should care more about great images from different places, and about surprising viewers with unexpected stories. How many more times must we watch gray-haired people in suits walking ominously down the street?

    Article: “Outside Voices: Jon Marshall Suggests More Enterprising Stories … From Locations Outside The U.S.

    Comments

    blog comments powered by Disqus
    Please read our Comment Policy.