In today's 24 hour news world many of the mainstream broadcast news outlets fail to inform their audience about international events, that many times are very important to America and her interests. While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning I came across this article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204883304577219532092779686.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews) detailing the recent and surprising rise of a young local governor in Venezuela, who will now run in opposition to President Chavez. Now it might just be me but shouldn't the news media inform us when a country as important as Venezuela has a serious opposition candidate to their current unpopular leader.
Venezuela in 2010 exported to the US 322,926,000 barrels of oil (http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbbl_a.htm) this accounted for about 5% of our total imports. So knowing this and the volatility in the oil and commodities markets shouldn't it be important enough to spend thirty seconds on? Informing the public about the current domestic and international events should be the media's top concern, however when I turn on my TV I'm inundated with news of Whitney Houston's death and the lack of information surrounding it. Her death was a tragic event and should most certainly be covered and investigated; however, the media should be providing me with relevant, current and quality information about events happening around the world. A viable candidate winning an important primary in Venezuela is the kind of information I want to know.
Ok I love that you brought this up becuase this is what im studying my concentration is Latin American Politics and I agree I just read this article in the NY Times today the reason this isnt huge news is that the elections isnt till october so for international coverage it is too early the closer we get to the elction the more coverage we will recieve this is a paticular interest to me and it should be to many people because venezuela is one of the leading countries of latin america coming third it Brazil and maybe Chile, another factor to consider is Chavez speaks a big game but is dependent on the U.S so nothing risky is going on dispite all other media stories and because of this there is nothing really to report. Unfortunatly asia the middle east and europe are seen as more important then Latin America so its natural they dont recieve much coverge. How ever as we get closer to October we will see more coverage
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