With the major television networks' news divisions shutting down many of their overseas bureaus to cut costs and ignoring significant foreign news events because of the lack of resources to cover them, the combined number of minutes devoted to international news has fallen from 4,828 in 1989 to 2,070 in 2009, according to the Tyndall Report, which tracks television news coverage. The figure has risen somewhat in 2010 to 2,247 minutes during the first ten months. NBC leads in foreign news coverage with 722 minutes (1,490 in 1989); CBS is second with 686 minutes, followed by ABC with 664 minutes. Alexandra Wallace, an NBC News senior vice president, told Tyndall that the downturn could be blamed on two factors the softening ad market and the fact that new technology now allows reporters "to do more with less."

13/12/2010