Comments on: Which countries does the NYT cover most and least?

By: Sigivald

Sigivald — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:21:38 +0000

It sure seems like you confuse "really matter[s]" with "I think people should care about".

(And shouldn't the US circle be much much larger, since all coverage of domestic politics should count; but most state-level mentions won't include "America".

And that assumes, dubiously, that the only thing that counts is political coverage.

Which is added to the as-already-mentioned-by-others dubious assumption that the Times is a mirror for US anything, let alone foreign policy.)

Israel could be said by others to "really matter" more than Mexico in terms of news coverage because Israel is geopolitically important, both because it's the only stable democracy in the Middle East* and a reliable ally, and because the Middle East is very important to the United States.

(* Iraq's too new to be stable - though the prognosis is good - and Turkey tends to not be counted as "Middle East" despite being very close by.)

Israel's state and its relation with the Palestinian masses supported by its (openly or less openly hostile) neighbors matter; warfare or open conflict there has repercussions in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabi, and Iran.

Mexico? Not so much.

Mexico is also very important to the United States, but it's in a much stabler state; it's not likely to be the focus of a war, or a lighting rod for radical Islamists who want to kill Americans.

Thus it's no surprise (even glossing over the large number of Jews in NYC and thus the local paper's desire to cater to the interests of its paying customers - the Times is first and foremost a New York City paper; about 50% of copies are sold in the NYC area, and about 12% of New Yorkers are of Jewish descent) that the Times covers Israel more than Mexico.

Mexico is boring in comparison. The only real unrest there is in Chiapas, and it's hard to get good reporting out from there, as opposed to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Mexico has crime and corruption, but they're also boring outside of Mexico or the border states.

By: iolanthe

iolanthe — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:45:05 +0000

“parts of the world you’ve never heard of, and will not have reason to hear about within your lifetime, such as Tuvalu and Bhutan”

Are you serious or not with this comment? I’d have thought that anyone with even minimal knowledge of geography and/or international affairs would have heard of both but perhaps not from an American perspective.

By: hanmeng

hanmeng — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:18:40 +0000

What happened to Taiwan?

Members only! (The chart is limited to members of the UN.)

By: Dave Barnes

Dave Barnes — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:59:54 +0000

What I found interesting and sad is that Italy has a larger circle than India.

You can argue all you want about the accuracy of the chart, but it says something about the USA when we don’t seem to care about a country with 1.3G people.

By: Acad Ronin

Acad Ronin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:23:27 +0000

What happened to Taiwan?

By: tinklebells

tinklebells — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 09:45:55 +0000

“Of course it does — and that is what the Iraq War was/is, “blood” (war) for oil…”

See I would have thought that Saddam would have been willing to sell the oil anyway, were he allowed to.

By: j

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:51:49 +0000

For some reason, people are obsessed with Jews and Israel. Commenters here think it is a good thing for the Jews, but the opposite is true. On the few occasions I open The Economist and there is nothing about us, I feel relief.

By: Aidan Kehoe

Aidan Kehoe — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 07:06:43 +0000

No, toto; cf. the lack of support for and interest in the Afrikaaners in South Africa or the Europeans in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia. And who knows or cares in the US about the Russians in Chechnya?

By: gcochran

gcochran — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:40:45 +0000

“We haven’t received discounts, correct…but by our armed presence we have obviously secured steady/special access to Iraq’s oil”

It all goes onto the world market. If someone else buys a million barrels of Iraqi oil, that frees up a million barrels of oil somewhere else.

We _decreased_ Iraqi oil exports by invading: only recently have those exports reached pre-invasion levels. As far as oil goes, we have gained nothing.

By: toto

toto — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:29:36 +0000

The rejoinder is that it's obviously due to the ethnic interest of an important group within the US (...) That's undoubtedly true except that Jews make up less than 3% of the population.

You're thinking of the wrong "ethnic group". Israel is nominally Jewish, but it is first and foremost a small droplet of White, Western people in an ocean of "Others". This leads Americans to identify strongly with Israelis. That, and the whole "Holy Land" thing.

If the Ethiopian Jews were stuck in a long-drawn colonial war in the Horn of Africa, I'm pretty certain that America would be much more level-headed about it.

By: Pseudothyrum

Pseudothyrum — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:06:47 +0000

“Does the phrase “Blood for no oil” ring a bell?”

Of course it does — and that is what the Iraq War was/is, “blood” (war) for oil…a way for America to shed some blood in order to secure the resource which keeps its economy and military afloat and head of all others. Again, without abundant oil America would grind to an absolute halt — all top U.S. government officials know this and worry (even obsess) about it constantly. This obsession and worry is kept largely behind the scenes to avoid causing panic in the public arena because most people don’t realize how dire and complex the energy situation is in America.

“the Middle East is incapable of democracy or a free market in the near future.”

Who cares? Democracy and the “free market” are highly overrated and even false concepts in my opinion, and have been for at least the last 100 years in most Western countries who have embraced them. Democracy and the “free market” meant something deacades ago, and they may still on a more local levels, but geostrategically these concepts are outmoded in the extreme. It’s all about centralization and control now.

“During the time we’ve occupied Iraq, we have not gotten any kind of discount on Iraqi oil. I think we’re going to leave Iraq , and I doubt if we’ll get any discount on or special access to oil then, either.”

We haven’t received discounts, correct…but by our armed presence we have obviously secured steady/special access to Iraq’s oil, and this is what counts. The majority of U.S. soldiers will leave Iraq as you say, but a decent amount will definitely stay behind for decades if necessary to guard America’s access to this steady and reasonably secure supply of oil/energy because, again, without this oil America’s economy would utterly collapse.

By: dougjnn

dougjnn — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:53:04 +0000

The real outlier without a completely rational US self interest explanation is obviously Israel.

The rejoinder is that it's obviously due to the ethnic interest of an important group within the US. Ireland rates higher than it might otherwise for similar reasons.

That's undoubtedly true except that Jews make up less than 3% of the population.

So ok we're talking about influence far outsized compared to population percentage, but real nonetheless.

Yup. Nothing more. Nothing less.

By: blah

blah — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:55:10 +0000

In terms of statistical graphics this information is best presented in a histogram (or table) ranked by frequency. Otherwise you need to search around to find the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. by cites.

The 2D representation would primarily be appropriate if you were to do a cartogram and/or if you were to superimpose the bubbles upon the countries. Even then I would use coloring rather than bubbles because (as someone pointed out above) the scaling of the bubbles leads to visual distortion.

By: Real Richard Sharpe

Real Richard Sharpe — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:13:08 +0000

gcochran, I am lead to believe that it is worse than what you say. That, through meddling by Democratic politicians, Iraq signed oil deals with China rather than US oil companies.

Perhaps I am wrong.

By: diana

diana — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:34:50 +0000

Jason,

What year is that map from? It's my impression (unscientific) that Israel gets much less coverage in the last two years than it did before. I wonder why.

Thanks as usual to Steve Sailer for pointing out the little known fact that the Times over-covers Israel.

By: Julian

Julian — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:38:46 +0000

I suggest that another useful way of presenting the data would be to have the size of the bubbles represent the ratio between the amount of coverage for a nation and its population. China’s bubble for example would be much smaller.

It would be interesting to do a similar plot for articles in The Economist and other magazines that make a point of providing worldwide coverage.

By: gcochran

gcochran — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:15:38 +0000

During the time we’ve occupied Iraq, we have not gotten any kind of discount on Iraqi oil. I think we’re going to leave Iraq , and I doubt if we’ll get any discount on or special access to oil then, either.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:37:08 +0000

So you're saying that our intervention and diplomacy efforts are uniformly distributed across all the countries we have embassies in?

No, I am saying the coverage of the New York times is a poor indicator of where our foreign policy efforts are. The New York Times is a tiny organization compared to the military, state department, commerce department, CDC, state governments etc. These all count.

By: obrien

obrien — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:57:23 +0000

I think social and fiscal sanity go hand in hand. Relative economic freedom, excluding the truly wealthy (who are pretty economically free unless they are completely cleaned out)*, is pretty useless if smoking pot=high liklihood of jail time/job loss** or sex=uncontrollable possiblity of children***. I mean I would definitely not want to live under fundamentalist Islamic rule even if I could keep every cent I earned.

*I hardly see why taking home "only" $800K out of $2M vs $1.5M out of $2M, much less taking home "only" $3M out of $20M is onerous, compared to say only taking home $50K out of $200K vs $140K out of $200K which would be atrocious especially in high cost of living areas. NOTE: These are all based on single incomes; married couples should always have the option of filing as single with the exact same brackets as singles filing as single.

**I would also like to add that the DEA is doubly a criminal organization--first directly in its activities, and secondly in how it promotes a violent gangster-controlled drug trade. I certainly don't want these people anywhere near my doctor or pharmacy, much less to gain control over alcohol, tobacco, or "abuse-able" OTC drugs. I guess the ATF already has the latter function to an extent, but their authority is not nearly as broad as the DEA's; they cannot arrest, raid, or dispossess people for simple possession of alcohol, tobacco, OTC drugs, or firearms for that matter.

***A government or agency that enforces laws against birth control, or even abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and severe disabilty is also grossly criminal.

By: agnostic

agnostic — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:47:55 +0000

but then you mistake the NY times coverage for the our foreign policy. The NY times has reporters in a few places, the US government has embassies/consulates/military bases/trade reps etc. in almost all of them.

So you're saying that our intervention and diplomacy efforts are uniformly distributed across all the countries we have embassies in? Wrong, of course. To take one obvious example:

http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/aid/fy2006/CBJAccountsum.pdf

You really aren't a very good geostrategic thinker

I think anyone who uses the word geostrategic is not a good geostrategic thinker either. Does the phrase "Blood for no oil" ring a bell? And who cares who's an enemy of Israel and free market capitalism?

The only reason Israel has something like a democracy and a free market economy is because they have a large fraction of Europeans -- Ashkenazi Jews. Without sufficient *human* raw materials, institutions don't matter, and so the Middle East is incapable of democracy or a free market in the near future -- give them 500 or so years for institutional change to cause genetic change, and the people may be ready for it. It took Europeans awhile to become ready for these things too, you know.

Another way of doing it would be to have the size of the bubbles represent the ratio between the number of column-inches and the population of the relevant country.

I'm hesitant about doing a per capita rate here since it's not clear that "obsession with a country" is something that's distributed among its population, like a disease or wealth might be. For example, we typically focus on the high-ranking government officials, elite businessmen, and the army. So I don't think the target of our obsession varies so much across countries.