As it currently exists, foreign reporting implicitly defers to the priorities of the state and of business, occupying itself almost exclusively with events which touch on military, commercial or humanitarian concerns. Foreign news wants to tell us with whom and where we should fight, trade or sympathize[, but] these three areas of interest really aren’t priorities for the majority of us.

[We might not find Italian politics interesting if we’re living in a different country, yet it’s conceivable to watch a two hour Shakespearean play about Julius Caesar. This is because underneath stories that may have a different reality to ours in the specific, there lies the universals which transcend those gaps. The news might not write like Shakespeare, but would do well to pay attention to these universals.]