Scroll through any American news website, and you will find a myriad of articles. Their subjects span from Donald Trump to the continued war against ISIL, occasionally even touching on such internationally significant subjects as Brexit or Justin Trudeau’s latest hairdo. You will not, most likely, read about the Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, in which hundreds of drug suspects have been rounded up and “routinely killed” by the police (Al Jazeera). Nor will you hear about the recent, possibly monumental elections in Somalia, in which the incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was ousted, and replaced by a hopeful new president, Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo.
None of these stories will cross your computer screen if you peruse the classic American news outlets, yet Americans must pursue these stories nonetheless. By restricting our input of news to national news, and sparse international news from our English-speaking, majority white allies, we restrict our worldview and our understanding of international politics, so as to be under-informed on many issues that affect the American people and the global community.
Our often limited understanding of global issues also reflects certain values which many Americans hold, values which represent the colonial spirit of our forefathers. These values suggest American news is the most important news for the sole reason that we are, in fact, the most important nation. To learn about the Phillipines or about Somalia would be an inconvenience at most, and certainly not a necessity for the average American citizen. Leave that to the politicians!
However, the problem with leaving these issues to politicians is that the policies we think pertain only to national issues are likely closely connected to international actors and stakeholders. Take climate change, for example. It would be easy to focus on a purely American perspective on climate change because we perceive our policies as only affecting the local community rather than the global community. However, by excluding international viewpoints, the climate enthusiast (or, I suppose, even the climate denier) will be missing an essential piece of the picture.
American policy (especially on global issues like climate change) takes into account the policies and political decisions of other nations. For instance, if many major American allies are committed to green energy, it may be beneficial for the American government to do the same. However, certain moral obligations must also be taken into consideration, such as America’s carbon footprint which has a direct impact on rising sea levels. These, in turn, affect smaller nations which have contributed minimally to the issue. Thus issues which we view as only affecting national interests are often, in reality, impacting the global community.
If the average American is not informed about these issues from a global perspective, it may be difficult for them to engage in a reasonable discourse on them. To discuss a major global issue such as climate change, all perspectives must be taken into account, not just the American perspective. By committing to following international news, Americans are committing to a global worldview. They are committing to a worldview which recognizes each country as important and all international news as noteworthy: not just that which pertains to white, English-speaking countries.