h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a bit in the Balkans that's not joined to the rest of Russia. That's the bit you have to click.

They showed Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast north-east of Poland, which was formerly East Prussia before the Soviets invaded in 1945. It's still part of Russia, even though it's not actually connected to it.

<>

Somewhere on the test it said that for Russia click on Kaliningrad (an enclave of soverign Russian territory sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland). The rest of the Russian federation wasn't shown.

Noggin

Regarding world news being reported in the US -



As someone finally pointed out, the US is a vast country. I've many times noticed that people from European countries (and all too often those from the UK) simply have no concept of just how big the US really is. I could give several examples of this, but these few should suffice to show that unless you've been here, you probably don't realize:

A friend married and moved to Virginia from Germany. Upon leaving Germany, her aunt said "If you happen to run into your cousin in Michigan, tell her hello from us." The city this woman had moved to in Virginia is located approximately 15 hours driving time (without rest and refueling stops) from the border of Michigan. There was no way she was going to "happen to run into" this cousin, unless she happened to go to Michigan, and happened to go to the city where this cousin lived in Michigan!

When a friend first visited us from the UK a couple years ago, he was hoping to take a day trip to see the Grand Canyon. We live in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, which would make driving to the Grand Canyon approximately a 4 *day* drive away from here.

When my daughter first reported on hootoo that she would be attending a university approximately 7 hours from home, many UK based researchers seemed to think she must have been going to some foreign country to study. No, 7 hours from here only takes you about 2 states away from here.



It's very true that most US citizens have never been out of the US, and most of us don't even own a passport... But that's because this is such a huge country that we could spend every vacation exploring a different part of the US, and still not run out of places to explore, even if we were to only spend a few days of our yearly vacation time in each place. (By the way, most of us in the US don't get as much vacation time to begin with, as people in other developed countries do.)

We're not so much "insular" as just trying to take in what's closest to home first, even if we might happen to believe this is the best country in the world.

The same is true with the news. With 200 million+ citizens, 50 states, and hundreds of major cities, there's a lot happening right here in the US. Add to that the stuff that happens in the small cities that makes national news, and that evening news hour can be overfilled just reporting the most "newsworthy" US events.

News programs have a set amount of time for reporting the news on the air, and you can't just run over that time limit by 30 minutes in order to fit it all in.

Things have to be prioritized somehow. While you or I may not agree with the prioritization (or the political agenda of the news editors) that pushes news from New Dehli, Mongolia or Estonia off the list for the day, what happens closer to home, or anything that more directly affects people in the US is going to be given greater priority than something that doesn't.

You make a strong argument.

Re. the vastness of the US - I've heard that there are farms in Texas the size of Wales!

And once you realize how vast the US is, you have to deal with the fact that Canada is about three times the size!

I sort of agree with you Lady Scott, but at the same time, part of my desire to travel is related to wanting to experience other cultures, not just other geographies. Maybe you can do that within the borders of the US too but it must be more difficult?

Bod yes. Fly Heathrow - San Franciosco and see how long it takes the plane to cross the Hudson Bay!

<> (Lady Scott)

Actually, I think that's 300+ million citizens. Etc. Still, I do think that international news should be included in US national newscasts. By not doing so the US continues to feel insular and isolated from what is going on in the rest of the world. Even if this means extending new programmes to fit it all in . . . if one's country is *so big* that it requires a whole half-hour or hour to get all the national stuff in, then why not have longer ones? Otherwise it comes across to most US viewers that international news is simply not important enough to report.

It seems to me that many US national TV news programmes do a great disservice to US citizens by not showing them what else is going on in the world. By making US news seem like all the information they need.

az

Kelli, I'm not sure thats true - you'd not say Wales and Scotland had the same culture as England, would you? I'm no expert but it was obvious to me that Vegas and New York were totally unlike each other and probably totally unlike the rest of the States.

I've also read enough American literature to know that the Soutrh, Texas, The Mid-West, New England, the Eastern Seaboard and the Pacific Coast are completely unlike each other, and that's without breaking it down into smaller regions like the Cotton Belt, the Ozarks, East Texas, The Frisco Bay...

I'm not sure that the news programme argument works. Any country can find enough news to fill a half-hour slot. If you have longer slots, larger countries like the US can fill that too. Equally, you could leave out a couple of the more minor stories and put some international news in their place. News programmers don't include non-US news not because they don't have time, but because they don't want to.

<> (Xanatic)

Well, yeah, except a lot of it is uninhabited or very slightly inhabited. Canada's population is similar to Spain's - about 35 million. Most of Canada's population resides along the US border, in the bigger cities. Way too cold and too many mosquitos to live in all those other vasty northern places.


az

>Otherwise it comes across to most US viewers that international news is simply not important enough to report.<

Without wanting to state the obvious, az, I don't think it is to the majority of them. And whilst I can see why that's a problem for the rest of them, I can see why it isn't a problem to the average guy from Gladewater, Texas. Unless it's sports he probably doesn't care what's happening in Chicago, never mind Europe.

And again, i think we are in danger of being a little holier than thou here. I can't really say that the UK broadcast news carries a lot of stuff about the rest of the world. Unless it's sports or disaster, and even then we either under-report (Pakistan earthquake, African civil wars) or over report (Tsunami, Winter olympics).

Same with Australia, it's massive and only has (I think) about 10 million people.

I'd say that Wales and Scotland have a similar culture, compared to the difference between us and, say, China, or India.

Maybe my view of the US is a bit weird though, have been to San Fransisco, Santa Clara and Tampa and saw a lot of generica.

I can see both sides of the argument, here Kelli, and you're not wrong but linked to a historical history of isolationism and the distances involved, I can see why getting on a plane to Europe isn't as appealing to an American as going the other way is for a Brit.

"if one's country is *so big* that it requires a whole half-hour or hour to get all the national stuff in, then why not have longer ones? Otherwise it comes across to most US viewers that international news is simply not important enough to report."

Feel free to try to convince the network execs that extending the news shows to include more world events is a good idea. They're making more money by re-running Seinfeld and Simpsons ad infinitum, then filling up the rest of the evening with inane "reality" programs or CSI and it's spinoffs.

I can guarantee you that network executives will take no notice of your suggestions and complaints as long as they're only here on hootoo, so be my guest and go directly to their homes to tell them exactly what you think of their news programming choices.

I don't really buy the argument that the media should show people what's going on outside the US. In a world of free-choice, the media are showing what people want to know. If there is a general disinterest in what happens outside of the border of the US, the media will learn to stop reporting on it, concentrating instead on national issues.

An exact allegory exists in the world of celebrity. It turns out that lots of people don't care if people are freezing to death in Pakistan, but *do* care about the latest sighting of Preston and Chantelle. So as a result we get reams and reams of news coverage on stuff that many people, on this site at least, would consider total dross.

Well Jon Stewarts the Daily Show covers the rest of the world.

Yes I know Canada is quite uninhabited. But it is just so damned big. And I would say the US is rather different in places, partly due to the immigrants coming from different places. such as New Orleans compared to Texas.

<> (Blues)

Well, a fire or a riot in Russia is perhaps not of interest to a farmer in Andalucia, but he still gets to see it reported on the national news. He can ignore it if he likes, but it's still there for those who *are* interested.


az