I have wrote before that the news you see determine your reality.  there was no clearer example of that than a quote I read in the Financial Times a couple of weeks ago: "CNN films the launch of the missile. Al-Jazeera films what happens where it lands."

I’ve noticed something very interesting during my trips around the world, and that’s summarised in how I decided to title this post. Even though we have become more “globalised” there is no single news source (to the dismay of CNN, BBC News, Euronews, Al-Jazeera and all the others I’m forgetting). Some examples below:

• In the U.S. newscasts tend to be of a local, state or national nature, and international news tend to be about Iraq, Afghanistan or any other perceived security threat. Seldom do you hear anything about their neighbours (Canada & Mexico) unless there is a problem. Almost never do you hear about Europe.
• In the UK the news are mostly local or national, but they tend to report quite a bit on both Europe, the U.S. and the security crises of the day.
• In Brazil, they’re mostly national, about the neighbouring countries (Argentina, Venezuela, etc.), the U.S. or Europe.
• In Japan, they’re mostly about Japan (at all different levels), the U.S., China or Korea.
• In Finland they talk mostly about local news, national news, what happens in Europe, the U.S., Sweden and Russia.
• In Mexico they spend their time talking about national politics, security and local news. The international news section is brief but usually quite varied, although there is a big focus on news items about the U.S. anyway.

It is very interesting to see that even though we live in a time when world wide information truly is at our fingertips, we tend to receive very little of it if we don’t search for it ourselves, and the differences in perspective are absolute startling. That’s what it’s all about, of course.