tv v. responsibility

in another sign that the internet is merging with my brain, worldchanging has a post about big media's lack of foreign coverage a day after anoniffer and i watch manufacturing consent:

...How TV covers international news, then, has an enormous impact on our ability to act as global citizens, to understand and respond clearly to global crises and opportunities.

So it really isn't helping things that TV coverage of international news really sucks.
[...]
In particular, former CNN reporter Rebecca MacKinnon (who blogs here), writes a scathing and fascinating exploration of the business-driven decisions which help keep Americans so ignorant of the workings of the world around us:

"If one believes that the role of the American media should be to inform the citizens of a democracy about the realities of major foreign policy problems so that those citizens can make informed judgments about their government's ability to conduct international relations, then one is likely to conclude that we failed to do our job. ...In this essay I was asked to discuss how American global TV media balances the global public good with American national interests. However it is important to understand another, much more important factor that trumps both the global public good and national interest. That factor is commercial interest."