Foreign press corps as an indicator of international news interest

The article examines the geographic distribution of foreign press corps around the world as a means of measure the newsworthiness of foreign countries. The media of all regions of the world have their largest contingents of foreign correspondents in the U.S. and Western Europe, reflecting that elitism is a major determinant of foreign news reporting. A secondary determinant is ‘proximity’ to foreign states - whether expressed in geographical, political, economic or cultural terms. A tendency to appoint foreign correspondents within their own region was particularly noteworthy in the Asian, Central American and South American media.