campaign desk

The View From Abroad

Foreign journalists cover the conventions
September 4, 2008

In 2004, when the Republicans and Democrats held their conventions in New York and Boston, the events were an easy train ride away for any reporter working along the East Coast megalopolis.

But to get to Denver or St. Paul from New York or D.C. requires a plane flight—and maybe, gasp, a hub connection!

But it’s an even greater haul if you are a journalist coming from abroad. And so I asked a bunch of foreign journalists an obvious question: Why bother?

“There’s an obvious answer. Because it is important to everyone in the whole world, who rules America,” responded Nikolina Sajn, who writes for the Croatian paper Jutarnji List.

“There is a lot of attention for the presidential elections in Europe because the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world,” said Kris Van Hamme, a New York based correspondent for two financial papers: Belgium’s De Tijd and The Netherlands’s Het Financieele Dagblad.

“It’s impossible to find a Belgian or Dutch angle,” Van Hamme complained. But most others had ready answers for why their countries, specifically, cared.

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“Lithuania is a border country with Russia,” said Vykintas Pugaciauskas, the international news editor for Lietuvos televizija, the Baltic nation’s public broadcaster. “The partnership with America is important because they have more leverage.”

“I’ve been watching American television and people have even said Obama picked Biden because of Russia and Georgia,” he said.

“When the U.S. people choose next election, it will have a big impact on Japanese foreign policy, and on security in Asia,” said Toshiyuki Hayakawa, the Washington correspondent for the Sekai Nippo, a conservative, Reverend Moon-owned daily. Policy towards North Korea is a major issue in Japan, and the paper’s been covering assumed contrasts in the candidate’s approaches. “Mr. McCain is very tough on foreign policy. On the other hand, Mr. Obama is very soft on foreign policy.”

“My editors did tell me it would be good if I could find some delegates of Croatian descent,” said Sajn. “But it is very difficult to find people like that.”

“There’s always an interest in American elections, but it’s greater across the world this time in particular because of the war,” said Finn Jorgensen of the Danish News Agency, noting his country’s domestically-contentious connection to Iraq: “We joined the war from the start—we’re out now.”

Foreign audiences, reporters, and editors, are also, not surprisingly, interested in the historical and dramatic aspects of this election. McCain’s name hardly came up in these portions of the discussions.

“When the primaries started our audience was not really interested,” said Andras Petho, who works for Origio, a Hungarian web portal. “But then the Democratic primaries went down to Obama-Hillary, and they were interested because they were so exciting.”

“There was a lot of excitement in Europe with Obama, and with Clinton too, in the primaries,” said Van Hamme. “If Europe had a choice in this, they’d elect Obama hands down.”

I asked Constance Chiogor Ikokwu of the Nigerian daily THISDAY if Africans were particularly interested in the election because of Obama’s background. “The fact that for the first time a person of color was given the nomination of a major party—well, who wouldn’t be interested?” she responded.

“There’s a lot of Obama-craze and Obamamania,” said Olivia Hampton, a Republican-focused producer for Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK. She says she’s had some trouble getting her stories on air. And she says she has trouble finding sources willing to work with NHK.

“You can imagine how hard it is for a Japanese television station to get people to speak with us,” she said. “We, the American—actually, I’m half French—or white producers go out to get interviews.”

“I’m strategic when I call. I say ‘Hi, this is Olivia from NHK.’ I don’t say ‘Hi, I’m Olivia from the Japanese television station NHK,” she said.

Others encountered similar problems.

“Were are the second thought,” said Ikokwu. “They are more interested in the American media, because, of course, the election is taking place in America.”

Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.