Poverty is one of the world’s most important challenges. The United Nations set the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030, but the reality is that the situation is worsening. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic and the widening inequalities it caused have intensified this problem. In 2020 alone, nearly 100 million people fell into extreme poverty. According to a report in 2023 March, the number of people in extreme poverty is estimated at about 660 million. However, the poverty threshold used here is set extremely low, and in reality more than half of the world’s population is considered to be in poverty (Note 1).  

Yet when it comes to the global poverty issue, the current state of Japanese international reporting is that it barely covers it. At GNV, we have repeatedly highlighted the major imbalance in coverage by region and country that arises in Japan’s international news. In particular, we have found that reporting on regions with many low-income countries and low-income people is scarce. Therefore, we considered whether the degree of poverty in a country is a major factor that influences how much that country is covered, and investigated what kind of relationship exists between global poverty and news coverage. In this article, taking into account not only poverty but also its relationship with coverage volume, we delve into the issue in more detail.

Johannesburg, South Africa (Photo: Steven dosRemedios / Flickr [CC BY-ND 2.0])

GNV’s past research

Here, we look back at what GNV’s research has revealed so far.

First, multiple studies have found that regions with high poverty rates receive less coverage. In 2015, we examined the share of international news by region and country across the three newspapers Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun. The results showed large differences in coverage by region, and that reporting on regions with many people living in extreme poverty—African countries and Latin American countries—accounted for only about 2–3%, of all international coverage. Since then, we have conducted the same survey annually, but as of 2022 the share has not increased. In 2017, we also carried out a comparison by region between the number and rate of people in poverty and the amount of coverage. We found that the proportion of coverage was lower in regions with severe poverty and higher in regions with many high-income countries. In addition, when we looked at the share of articles within international coverage about the 48 countries that the UN then designated as “Least Developed Countries,” the average among the three papers was just about 5%.

This pattern is not limited to newspapers. Similar imbalances were found in television programs, online news, and news apps such as SmartNews and LINE NEWS. Across media types, the share of coverage for regions with high poverty rates is extremely low. Does poverty, after all, strongly relate to how much coverage a place gets?

A cameraman and a reporter on assignment (Photo: International Monetary Fund / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

We also examined whether other factors might influence coverage volume. In our study on the “size” of a country and news coverage, we found that being a “major power” in terms of population size or gross domestic product (GDP) does not necessarily translate into more coverage. For example, as of 2015 India exceeded Russia in population and real GDP, yet Russia received more news coverage. Although the analysis was limited to the ten most populous countries, we could not conclude a correlation between coverage volume and a country’s population, economic scale, trade with Japan, or physical distance alone. In a study of articles in the three major newspapers in 2017, we observed a large gap in coverage volume: when comparing European countries such as the UK and France to India—despite similar GDP levels—the latter received less than half as much coverage as the former. In this way, even countries with large populations such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and Nigeria, and even countries like India and Brazil with relatively high GDP, are often underreported—perhaps because of their high poverty rates.

Close ties to Japan through trade and other relations also do not necessarily lead to more coverage. For example, although the eleven Southeast Asian countries have high volumes of trade and people-to-people exchange with Japan and are geographically close, their share of coverage in Yomiuri Shimbun’s international news in 2019 was only 4.0%. Similarly, for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), despite the fact that as of 2019 Japan depended on these two countries for 65.1% of its crude oil imports, coverage was relatively low. Measured by the share of characters in international news across the three major newspapers in 2019, Saudi Arabia accounted for about 0.3% and the UAE about 0.03%.

A large container ship docked at a port in Florida, USA (Photo: JAXPORT / Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0])

Moreover, after COVID-19 struck in 2020, the number of people placed in poverty soared to unimaginable levels, yet coverage of this was extremely limited. In 97 million people fell into extreme poverty in 2020 alone, while about USD 4 trillion flowed to billionaires with assets exceeding one billion dollars. Despite this rapid surge in global inequality, looking at the three papers—Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri—from 2020 to 2021, there was almost no reporting on these inequalities. Furthermore, during the same period at Mainichi Shimbun, articles using the words “billionaire,” “tycoon,” or “ultra-high-net-worth” exceeded those using the term “extreme poverty” by more than 30 times.

Our study of SDG coverage—where poverty is one of the foremost themes—also showed that news specifically about poverty is scarce. In 2021 at Asahi Shimbun, among articles addressing specific SDGs targets, only 5% included Goal 1 “No Poverty.” This was very low compared with the other 16 goals, ranking 12th out of all 17. Moreover, among all articles about the SDGs, exactly 0 used the crucial term “extreme poverty.”

The relationship between poverty and coverage volume

As shown above, it is clear that there is little reporting on low-income countries and on regions with many people in poverty. However, in GNV’s research to date, aspects of the relationship between poverty and coverage have remained inconclusive. It is possible that factors other than poverty influence coverage volume and happen to overlap with poverty rates, making it only appear that countries with high poverty rates get little coverage. For example, poverty might seem to drive coverage volume, but the real driver could be distance—perhaps countries far from Japan also happen to have higher poverty rates. Or, when looking globally, if countries with low trade volume with Japan receive less coverage and those countries also happen to have high poverty rates, then trade volume—not poverty—could be the determinant of coverage. Therefore, in addition to examining the relationship between each country’s poverty rate and coverage volume, we also investigated other potential factors to test whether “countries with higher poverty rates have less coverage” can be stated clearly.

This time, along with the poverty rate we added data on population, GDP, trade volume with Japan, and the distance from Tokyo to each capital, and conducted statistical analysis of their relationship with coverage. Since articles about case counts and other COVID-19 data surged after the pandemic and could skew results, we limited the newspaper articles analyzed to those published before that. We examined international articles in Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri from 2019, identified the countries referenced, and calculated coverage by summing the number of characters per country (Note 2). For the factors to explore the determinants of coverage volume, we mainly analyzed data from 2018 (Note 3).

The poverty rate is quantified as the percentage of people in each country living on less than a certain amount, and here we use two benchmarks: USD 1.9 per day and USD 7.5 per day. USD 1.9 per day was the World Bank’s extreme poverty line as of 2019, and it is also used as a benchmark in the SDGs. On the other hand, given what it takes for a human to live, some researchers argue this threshold is unrealistic and propose an “ethical poverty line” instead. Based on the relationship between life expectancy and income, this is the minimum line that guarantees survival, and in 2019 it was set at USD 7.4 per day. Since GNV adopts this ethical poverty line, we include it in this study. Due to data availability, however, we used the closest available benchmark of USD 7.5 per day as one of our standards (Note 4).

The statistical analysis showed that there is indeed a relationship between poverty and coverage volume. Moreover, among the factors analyzed here, the poverty rate, distance between capitals, and population all influenced coverage. This held under both the USD 1.9 and USD 7.5 benchmarks (Note 5). Even after controlling for distance and population, the poverty rate still affected coverage. By contrast, we found no statistically significant relationship with trade volume with Japan or with GDP (Note 6).

Why does this bias occur?

Why, then, is there so little coverage of countries with high poverty rates? We explore four perspectives: influence, reporting networks, whether actors are “elite,” and the viewpoints of media professionals and readers.

First, influence. Low-income countries may be seen as lacking the power to shape events at the global level. In contrast, high-income countries with economic and military power often produce events with broad global implications and are perceived as influential. The latter thus receive more coverage, which likely produces the imbalance discussed above. When selecting a handful of stories from the countless events happening worldwide each day, editors may end up prioritizing events in countries considered more influential and highlighting them first.

However, we should be cautious about concluding that coverage is truly based on influence. In our analysis, we did not find correlations between coverage and GDP or trade volume with Japan. Countries with greater economic power or more trade with Japan could be considered more influential for Japan, but these factors did not turn out to drive coverage in our results.

Another factor may be the thin reporting networks in low-income countries. Which countries and regions Japan’s media consider important can be read from where they place bureaus. We know there are very few bureaus in regions where low-income countries are concentrated. Without a sufficient number of bureaus and correspondents, it becomes even harder to report from those areas, creating a negative cycle.

Journalists at a press conference during the African Union Summit (Photo: Paul Kagame / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

Beyond national influence, whether actors are “elite” also seems to matter. Japanese international coverage tends to feature events involving elites. Here, “elites” refers to those with significant economic, political, or cultural influence, including certain states, lawmakers, bureaucrats, and media organizations. In GNV’s study, about 57% of international articles in Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri from 2015 to 2020 centered on elites. Japanese media professionals themselves are often relatively elite, and the readers they imagine may be similar in background. Elite journalists may view the world from a perspective closer to that of elite readers and focus on stories that those readers find compelling.

There may also be a discomfort factor for media professionals and audiences in focusing on poverty. Systems of trade and economics—such as unfair trade—that are led by high-income countries like Japan exacerbate global poverty. A sense of being on the extracting side may dampen enthusiasm for active reporting. Even when there is no direct responsibility, continued focus on poverty that is slow to improve may make readers feel helpless, which could also reduce coverage. In any case, the sensibilities of media professionals and audiences may be influencing these reporting patterns.

In sum, various factors likely shape the relationship between poverty and news coverage in Japanese media.

To understand the world

This study makes clear that in Japanese international news “countries with higher poverty rates receive less coverage.” The resulting harms are far from minor. Low-income countries and low-income people make up the majority of the world. To understand the world as it is, we need a broad and more balanced perspective that includes those low-income people and countries.

Furthermore, because high-income people also bear responsibility for poverty, media in high-income Japan have a responsibility to report with that in mind. And the poverty issue is not confined to low-income countries; it can eventually affect high-income people as well. To move toward solving poverty, we first need to know the situation in countries with high poverty rates.

Aerial view of Nairobi, Kenya (centered on Kibera) (Photo: Schreibkraft/ Wikimedia [CC BY-SA 3.0])

As for the SDGs, in recent years Japan’s media have featured them more often, and they are now a familiar presence, drawing intense interest from government and business. While various initiatives are being undertaken in the name of moving toward achievement, as noted at the outset, progress is in fact slipping. Without coverage of this reality, we cannot even perceive the gap between public momentum and the actual situation. To achieve the SDGs—which were set to realize goals such as eradicating poverty and reducing inequality—we believe faithful reporting on the realities facing low-income countries and low-income people is essential.

Note 1: In September 2022, the World Bank raised the extreme poverty line from living on USD 1.9 per day to USD 2.15. However, this line does not capture actual poverty, and there is a view that the ethical poverty line—closer to reality—should be set at USD 7.4 per day instead. The World Bank also measures poverty using a USD 6.85 per-day line; as of 2023, about 45% of the world’s population is estimated to live below that level.

Note 2: We examined the Tokyo morning editions of Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun published from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. For articles defined as international news by GNV (definition), we identified the countries involved and summed the number of characters per country. For articles with multiple countries, the character count was divided by the number of countries.

Note 3: We conducted a multiple regression analysis. Multiple regression analyzes and predicts how several factors affect a given outcome. In news, phenomena that begin to emerge in one year may only become clear later and then be reported. Therefore, although the annual change in each factor is not large, we introduced a one-year lag between coverage and the other data. Accordingly, we used population, GDP, and trade volume with Japan (sum of exports and imports) from 2018. For poverty rates, measurement years vary widely by country, so we used the most recent data available from 2019 or earlier.

Note 4: The poverty rate benchmarks available from the World Bank were only USD 7.0 and USD 7.5 per day. We therefore adopted USD 7.5, which is closest to the more ethical line of USD 7.4 per day.

Note 5: The relationships between coverage volume and each of the poverty rate, distance between capitals, and population were statistically significant. However, given limitations in poverty data and the complex nature of poverty itself, we cannot assert that poverty is necessarily the single most decisive factor. At a minimum, though, at the level of analysis conducted here, we found that countries with higher poverty rates receive less coverage.

Note 6: The regression results are as follows.

Robust standard errors in parentheses

*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

P-values are one criterion for assessing statistical significance, and while they cannot be interpreted mechanically, smaller values generally indicate stronger relationships.

Writer: Aoi Yagi

Data analysis: Dilou Prospere

Graphics: Mayuko Hanafusa, Koki Ueda