Domestic concerns

As a World Service junkie, I probably suffer from an overload of 24/7 news. Even so, the WS does provide a counterbalance to the largely domestic focus of the UK news, and today the news focus in various media sources is a reminder of how, ultimately, the news tends to be largely domestic in its concerns.

President Obama's Tuscon speech is featured on the BBC News web site, and it is reported in three of the quality dailies: the Guardian,The Independent and The Telegraph (I didn't bother with the Times as it is now behind a pay wall). But, it doesn't receive much in the way of commentary in the UK media, although there was quite a long item on it on the Radio 4 Today programme. In fact, the focus of the UK media today is the by-election up north, whose results will be the subject of minute examination in the context if the coallition government.

In comparison, the New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/] as might be expected devotes a lot of space, both reportage and commentary, to the President's Tuscon visit and speech. The discrepancy of focus between the UK and US press highlights the essentially domestic nature of these various events. What goes on in American politics seems to foreign observers to be America's business, which makes the character of political rhetoric seem even more exotic. Just as the vox pop interviews of Americans and samples of shock jock radio that appear on UK TV seem like samples of curiously alien cultural practices.

But, the effects of such cultural -- and political -- practices don't just stop at the shores of the USA. Just as the rabid extremes of political rhetoric are not without wider effects, however indirect. So, while the Oldham by-election will take centre stage in tomorrow's news, what continues to nag me is the international implications of the aftermath of the Tuscon shootings.