Japanese reporting on the world is sparse. Across news outlets, the share of international news in total coverage remains at around 10%. Depending on the outlet, that’s about half the amount devoted to sports. If international news increased to around 20%, on par with sports coverage, how would readers’ and viewers’ perspectives on the world change? As more people now access news via social media and apps, some apps feature entertainment news making up as much as 40% of all coverage. If the share of entertainment news fell and international coverage rose, would readers change in any way? Moreover, even within international news there is strong regional skew: coverage allocated to Africa and Latin America is only about 2–3% each. If coverage of each of these regions doubled, would the behavior of governments and companies change, even a little?

In the present, when most of the world is not the subject of coverage, there are many events that profoundly affect the world but whose realities remain invisible in the news. For example, you would not learn from coverage the fact that in 2023, the countries with the most people displaced by armed conflict were not Palestine or Ukraine, but Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If people knew this fact, would the distribution of humanitarian assistance change? And if many learned that G7 countries spend 62 times more on weapons than on humanitarian aid worldwide, would their views of their own governments’ and allied governments’ policies shift? Or if people knew that the income earned by the workers who make our clothes often amounts to less than 1% of the purchase price, would our consumption behavior change?

Of course, international reporting also affects national interests. For that perspective, please see this article. In this piece, we look at the world from a “people-first” perspective and explore the question of how the world we live in might change if international coverage were strengthened.

Journalists in Timor-Leste (Photo: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service / NARA & DVIDS [Public Domain])

Reporting, interest, and emotion

It goes without saying that when the information people encounter about the world increases and diversifies, knowledge grows and understanding deepens. How much it changes varies greatly by individual, and presupposes that people have some interest in seeking out such information in the first place. International news is a form of information about the world that people encounter in daily life. For that reason, some argue that the low volume and skew of international coverage reflect low audience interest. However, without coverage, there is nothing to be interested in. Whether there is any spark that turns one’s gaze to the world is one important factor in shaping people’s interest in it. Even if it only affects a portion of the population, increasing international coverage and encouraging people’s interest in the world carries significant benefits.

For example, many studies have confirmed that countries receiving more coverage are more likely to be perceived as “important” compared to those that are not. There is also a pattern whereby whether reporting on another country is positive or negative influences the image readers and viewers have of that country. Furthermore, exposure to other countries and cultures not only fosters interest in them, but also deepens respect and understanding and reduces discrimination, a decline that can occur even without direct interaction—there is also an effect when one “encounters” others through news. International reporting does shape how people perceive the world.

The influence of international news does not stop at individuals knowing and understanding events. When informed individuals share stories or their views—verbally or on social media—more people around them gain opportunities to encounter international reporting. There are phenomena where information that becomes a topic in traditional media also trends on social media, and phenomena where topics and reactions on social media are reflected back into news coverage. This occurs in part because journalists pick up information trending on social platforms and use social reactions to their stories as evidence when deciding whether to pursue follow-up coverage.

Beyond cultivating interest and understanding, international news can also evoke emotions toward distant others. Sympathy for victims of disasters or armed conflicts that arises through reporting is a clear example. Photos and videos used in news shrink the distance between those involved and observers and amplify that effect. However, the extent of emotion varies greatly depending on who the subjects are and what their situation is—that is, the degree to which observers can empathize or sympathize—and it can be said that journalists judge news value based on that sensitivity. There is also the observation that overemphasizing victims’ circumstances in disasters or conflicts can cause “compassion fatigue,” leading to waning interest over time.

A woman being interviewed by journalists in Ethiopia (Photo: UNICEF Ethiopia / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

Reporting and individual action

Individuals who become concerned about a global issue through international news, or who empathize with those affected, sometimes take action. Many, for example, try to support victims of disasters or conflicts through donations. International reporting plays an important role for those who want to step up. Donating unwanted clothes to people in need is widely considered a form of giving, but if one learns about the negative impacts secondhand clothing donations can have locally, one might choose more effective means such as cash. Learning that one can support not just with money or goods, but also with time and labor, may lead some to volunteer with NGOs working on specific problems. As understanding of global realities deepens, both methods of support and ways of engaging with issues change.

Individuals who gain a deeper understanding of global conditions and systems can also raise their voices about the actions of their own and other governments and companies. As more people speak up—on social media, by phone, email, or letter—issues are more likely to be recognized as important. Some join petitions and demonstrations to convey citizens’ voices. For example, from the 2010s, many in multiple Latin American countries rallied for abortion legalization. Those voices did not remain domestic; they linked across countries in similar circumstances and grew into a force that brought legal changes in several nations.

International news can also affect readers’ and viewers’ everyday lives, for instance by prompting changes in consumption behavior. Learning about problems in the world tied to certain products, companies, or industries may lead some to refrain from buying or using related products. This may appear as a boycott as part of protest campaigns, or as a lifestyle shift informed by an understanding of global issues. For example, as more people learn about the environmental burdens of the meat industry and how animals are treated, the number of people reducing or forgoing meat has grown in recent years.

Knowing the connection between a product and global problems can also lead people to proactively buy alternatives. For instance, upon learning about the reality that producers in low-income countries are placed in a disadvantaged position in global trade, some support the fair trade movement, which aims for fair and equitable transactions, and actively purchase products bearing fair trade certifications. Many are willing to pay more for such products.

Behavioral changes through learning also appear in job searching. For example, in response to Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip since 2023, many STEM students have signed a pledge not to seek jobs at Amazon and Google, which launched a large-scale tech cooperation project with the Israeli military in 2021, boycotting those companies.

Peter Gabriel speaking at a Witness NGO event (Photo: Witness: See it. Film it. Change it. / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

Some people, prompted by coverage they saw, gather companions to take action to improve a situation and even establish organizations. For example, the founder of the major international NGO Amnesty International was moved by a British newspaper article about political prisoners in Portugal and founded the group in 1961. The group’s origins lie in calling on many people to send protest letters to the Portuguese government demanding the release of political prisoners, thereby exerting international pressure. The founding of the NGO Witness, which supports efforts to expose human rights violations through recorded evidence videos, was also prompted by news: musician Peter Gabriel saw TV news broadcast footage of human rights abuses in the United States captured by a civilian’s video camera, and launched the NGO in 1992.

Reporting and corporate behavior

Companies are sensitive to coverage that could damage their reputations. When reporting concentrates on problems involving a particular company or industry, they ramp up PR toward media and others to burnish or “wash” their image.

Some companies, however, go beyond superficial reputation management and actually act. For instance, to attract corporate entry and investment, Saudi Arabia launched the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in 2017 and has since hosted annual investment conferences inviting leaders from business and politics. But after the 2018 murder of a journalist at the Saudi consulate in Turkey, critical reporting questioned attendance at the conference, and many companies withdrew. This is an example of how reporting and the public opinion it shapes can pressure companies and change their behavior. However, beyond this murder, Saudi Arabia has committed other human rights abuses and acts regarded as war crimes in neighboring Yemen, yet little reporting focused on these issues, and the wave of withdrawals was limited to 2018, when media attention peaked.

As the 2018 Saudi case shows, news should in principle monitor power and prevent abuses by reporting on human rights violations and problematic actions by those in power. Because of this role in watching and calling out power, the press is sometimes called a “watchdog.” Unfortunately, such watchdog reporting is scarce in international news. This stems partly from the overall paucity of international coverage, but also from the tendency of outlets to cultivate close ties with and cozy up to major domestic corporations. The background includes media’s dependency on big firms for sources and advertising revenue. As a result, harmful corporate behavior is less likely to be covered. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the fact that pharmaceutical manufacturers prioritized profit over saving lives drew little attention. And even when companies operating abroad are suspected or found to be involved in corruption, human rights abuses, or environmental problems in host countries, there are many cases where media pay scant attention.

Fairtrade coffee beans from Peru exported to Canada (Photo: kris krug / Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0])

Some companies make solving specific global problems their very business model. For instance, there is a chocolate maker that touts not using slave labor. The founder started the company after working as a journalist producing programs on slave and child labor in the chocolate industry—background here. There are also companies specializing in fair trade clothing and food.

Corporate inventions and innovation can also help improve global problems, and international reporting can spark them. For example, after seeing news about the difficulty of providing neonatal care in poorer regions, a British inventor developed a portable, inflatable incubator—see the story here. Learning about the world through international news can provide the impetus to apply existing technologies to solve problems abroad.

In Japan’s business and media spheres, there is a growing emphasis on ethical business. In particular, more companies highlight their efforts toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and toward ESG investing, which uses environmental, social, and governance considerations as criteria. Media outlets are paying attention to such corporate efforts while also announcing their own SDG-related initiatives. While questions remain about how much substantive change has been achieved, it is fair to say that globally minded companies and media influence each other.

Reporting and policy

International reporting is said to influence a state’s foreign policy in various ways. It can prompt or accelerate certain policies, or obstruct particular policies or actions. It can also raise or lower the priority of certain issues within government agendas.

This phenomenon is particularly visible in humanitarian aid. Many people worldwide lose their lives due to disasters or armed conflicts, but more die as a result of humanitarian crises—disease and hunger—triggered by those events than by the events themselves per se. To prevent this, humanitarian assistance plays a vital role, and it is clear that the implementation and scale of such aid is influenced by the amount of coverage. In other words, when reporting on a particular humanitarian issue increases, the humanitarian aid allocated to it also increases.

Humanitarian assistance in an area affected by a cyclone in Mozambique (Photo: US Africa Command / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

Reporting focused on humanitarian crises is called “humanitarian reporting.” Places where lives are most at risk and aid must arrive as soon as possible should be prioritized in coverage. In reality, however, humanitarian reporting is not driven by actual need, but is heavily skewed toward locations that governments and other elites pay attention to. The current situation is that the world’s most severe humanitarian crises receive almost no coverage. Those who provide humanitarian aid are not always motivated by “humanitarian” concerns either; various political and strategic calculations lie behind it. As a result, aid concentrates on a limited number of disasters and conflicts that great powers and major media focus on.

Given that media coverage has a measurable effect on the distribution of humanitarian aid, the fact that media concentrate on one or two conflicts and neglect others is a grave problem that affects lives. By highlighting large-scale disasters and conflicts that are not receiving aid, media have the power to contribute to saving many lives; there is no reason not to cover them.

International news may also have a deterrent effect on human rights abuses and war crimes by governments and conflict parties. Governments are to some extent sensitive to their reputations abroad and often take steps to prevent damage to them. Unfortunately, such steps frequently do not involve substantive changes in behavior; rather, they often amount to paying large sums to PR firms to “launder” their reputations through public relations abroad. Still, there are documented cases in conflicts such as Bosnia, Sudan, and Syria where parties refrained from problematic actions when those actions were reported by foreign media.

International reporting can also prompt learning from other countries’ policy successes and failures and thereby improve domestic policy. This is not limited to those directly involved in policymaking. As exposure to policies implemented abroad increases across society, more robust public opinion formation and the likelihood of policy uptake are thought to increase.

A peacekeeper reading with children in South Sudan (Photo: UNMISS / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

Ripple effects

As we have seen, there are numerous routes by which international reporting can bring change to global realities. Over the long term, international news also plays an important role for the next generation. As the saying goes, “journalism is the first rough draft of history,” and what is covered in the news is often cited when history is written and weighed. If international reporting is valued more highly and can capture a broader world, understanding of the world will deepen through history. The same holds for education. The world presented in textbooks is influenced by international reporting. Students who receive an education that deepens global understanding will enter society and become journalists, join companies or NGOs, or work in policymaking. A virtuous cycle can emerge.

Today, as globalization accelerates and cross-border challenges multiply, the importance of international news is clearly growing. Even increasing the share of international coverage within total news by a few percentage points, or adjusting the regional distribution within it by a few points, could bring some change. Considering that such change can affect human lives, it may be urgent to rethink how international reporting is done.

Writer: Virgil Hawkins

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