Sunday, August 17, 2008

Foreign correspondence

Something that I've noticed lately because of the Georgia-Russia conflict. American cable news networks (CNN, MSNBC, FOX) don't spend a lot of time covering foreign news. So how come when they do have a 'foreign correspondent' on the air, that person almost always has a British accent? Does cable news think that people with non-American accents have more street cred to talk about international issues? Or is it because there aren't very many American-born foreign correspondents?

I suspect it's the former, which is frankly a little sad. Thoughts?

2 comments:

Ern said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ern said...

It's a very interesting question. My assumption is also the former. However, I am not positive that all foreign correspondants are in fact British. I know that BBC America has Americans put on British accents for their various commercials/ads. Perhaps some of the correspondants are Americans with a talent for coherent British accents.

August 18, 2008 10:09 AM