I have been following the Ukrainian election and its vote fraud very carefully on the Internet. I worked in west Ukraine with the Soros Foundation and have a great interest in the political situation.
For those of you in Ukraine or Europe, you may find this hard to believe, but cnn.com (america edition), msnbc, foxnews, msn and my city paper (the houston chronicle…with a circulation of over a million) has not mentioned anything about the Ukrainian elections.
Chicago Tribune, with a huge Ukrainian population–nothing on the front page. Washington Post and LA Times (two major regional newspapers) have the election fraud as the number one story on the front page. New York Times, the leading newspaper in USA, didn’t have it as a headline on the website all day, and when they posted a story this morning, they ran an AP syndication story (which basically means that they borrowed the story from an international news service). (I assume that they will have a reporter writing an indepth story soon). The Boston Globe, the academic capitol of the US, with its own Ukrainian institute, also used the same AP story.
What does this mean? Except for people in a small number of cities or people who actively search out international news, the overwhelming majority of Americans who look online for news will never have seen any mention of the Ukraine election. This perhaps can explain why Americans don’t feel accountable to the rest of the world; from their perspective, the rest of the world practically doesn’t exist (although Iraq certainly exists, because we’re spreading “freedom” there).
Here are the headlines for cnn.com, the leading newsource in USA at the moment: Players, fans, may face charges after fight (basketball story)
? Judge delays penalty phase of Peterson trial (high profile murder trial) ? Five hunters killed in deer-stand dispute | premium content Video (wacko killer) ? Suspected hostage beheading site found | premium content Video (follow up on Iraqi hostage killed) ? On the Scene: Iran promises not to ‘be nuclear’ (well, yes, this is important…) ? Camden, New Jersey, named most dangerous city (story about murder rate) ? Plane heading to pick up former President Bush crashes (this took place in Houston btw) ? SI.com: D.C. unveils ‘Nationals’ baseball team (sports) ? Former janitor leaves millions to school (human interest story)
Contrast with bbc (lead story, with three related stories) USA google news (autogenerated news) Ukraine’s election is the lead story Al jazeera (Ukraine is the lead or the 2nd lead story)
Australia’s Age (not the lead, but at least one of the main world stories)
(after checking china’s .xinhuanet.com and india’s hindustan times and the hindi, the Ukraine story doesn’t show up either, or it shows up in a minor way).
A political story fails to be interesting to an American unless an American soldier has been killed there, a building has been bombed by a Palestinian or Iraqi terrorist or an athlete or movie star is somehow on the scene, doing something hysterically wierd or funny or embarrassing.
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