THE PUBLIC EDITOR READERS WANT MORE NEWS OF OUTSIDE WORLD

By Michael Arrietta-walden

of The Oregonian staff

Source: THE OREGONIAN

Sunday,May 15, 2005

Edition: SUNRISE, Section: COMMENTARY FORUM, Page F01

THE PUBLIC EDITOR READERS WANT MORE NEWS OF OUTSIDE WORLD

Barry E. Wright of Portland used mock headlines to make his point about national and international news in The Oregonian:

"Headline: 'Rose Festival Parade'

Small story: 'World War III Begins' "

Wright's example might be extreme, but his passion for news outside of the Portland area isn't.

More than 630 readers responded to an informal survey asking their views of national and international news in The Oregonian.

Overwhelmingly, they want to see more of the world in their newspaper.

The survey is far from scientific. Yet the responses are noteworthy because they run counter to much of the thinking and trends at the newspaper. Local news is the newspaper's franchise. Space devoted to nonlocal news, other than the Iraq war, has declined in recent years.

But readers argued passionately for more, even at the expense of local news.

"I know you've only got so much space," Wright says. Yet he pleads, like so many others, "More national and international news please!!"

Of those who responded to the survey, more than two-thirds said the newspaper carries too little national and international news, and only a handful said there was too much. More than three-quarters said they would rather have more and better national and international news as compared with less than one-quarter asking for more local news.

"The Oregonian is the state's primary newspaper, yet it seems provincial," writes reader Susan de la Vergne of Lake Oswego. "The world is shrinking."

Peter Bhatia, the newspaper's executive editor, says he also would like to devote more space to national and international news. "But our priority is and will be local news. We have to make choices about how we use the space in the paper, and local news is far and away what readers tell us they want and what our formal research shows."

Bhatia notes that the paper's definition of "local" includes any news that people here care about, thus the paper's sending of three reporter-photographer teams to Iraq in the past 10 months to cover Oregon National Guardsmen. And he cited the work of reporter Richard Read, who often travels to Asia.

Almost two-thirds of those responding to the informal survey said they don't rely on The Oregonian as their primary source for national and international news, but many said they wish they could do so. Instead, the majority rely on television and radio for headlines.

Less than one-fifth said they rely on the Internet as their primary source of news, although those who do wrote disparagingly about the newspaper. "I frequently skip over section A because the national and international stories are dated," writes Jim Gladson. "I read it the previous evening on the Web."

Yet a huge majority didn't want the newspaper to make significant adjustments to cater to the Internet. They would rather the newspaper devote space to an overview of major news rather than guiding readers to key Web sites. "After all day at a computer at work, it's the last place I want to go in the evening. Yuk!" writes Ann Plummer of Portland.

Readers also don't necessarily look for an Oregon connection to news from far away. More than half said it is rarely or never important that world and national stories have an Oregon tie. Instead, many cited their own personal ties: They moved to Oregon from elsewhere. They traveled in Taiwan. They lived in Sweden. Their work routinely took them around the world.

Thomas Curtin and many other readers offered another reason for nurturing a broader world view. Now more than ever, Americans need to understand the world. And it's the role of journalists to give them understanding.

"I remember feeling encouraged after 9/11 when some of the major news outlets commented that it might be time to devote more energy to reporting more world news. That maybe we as a nation had become too insulated from the rest of the world . . ." Curtin writes.

"Unfortunately, that paradigm shift did not occur."

Michael Arrieta-Walden: 503-221-8221; publiceditor@news.oregonian.com 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland OR 97201.