Toronto Star Public Editor: Western media’s failure to properly cover the developing world

Conflicts, coups and catastrophes: These are the stories Canadians are most often told about the world beyond our borders. Media coverage of international affairs has long been driven by dramatic breaking news events while deep reporting on the ongoing issues affecting the developing world has been as scarce as the GDP of some of the…

Conflicts, coups and catastrophes: These are the stories Canadians are most often told about the world beyond our borders.

Media coverage of international affairs has long been driven by dramatic breaking news events while deep reporting on the ongoing issues affecting the developing world has been as scarce as the GDP of some of the planet’s poorest nations.

That is the unsurprising news in a recently released research project exploring Canadian media coverage of global development issues. The extensive and excellent report was commissioned by the Aga Khan Foundation Canada and conducted by a research team from Carleton University and Université Laval.

Western media coverage of the developing world tends to be, “rare, episodic, fragmentary and focused on conflict and catastrophe,” the report concludes.

The study asked several critical questions about Canadian media and the developing world: What are the stories that Canadians are told about the developing world? Which part of the developing world do these stories feature? Who are the voices and sources telling these stories? What perspectives and interests are informing them?

It also included a content analysis of the media coverage of the developing world by significant Canadian news organizations, reviewing more than 3,000 news stories across multiple news platforms from January to April, 2015.

Continue reading this story on the Toronto Star website, where it was first published.

Kathy English

Toronto Star Public Editor