Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The threat of war in Iraq is driving increasing numbers of Americans to international news websites in search of the broader picture. Traffic to the UK's biggest news sites, BBC News Online and Guardian Unlimited, has increased dramatically over the past year, as has traffic to sites such as World News Network, German Times, Israel's Ha'aretz Daily, and alternative news sites like Urban75.com and YearZero. "We have noticed an upsurge in traffic from America, primarily because we are receiving more e-mails from US visitors thanking us for reporting on worldwide news in a way that is unavailable in the US media," said Jon Dennis, deputy news editor of the Guardian Unlimited web site. The American public is apparently turning away from the mostly US-centric American media in search of unbiased reporting and other points of views. According to the statistics, much of the US media's reaction to France and Germany's intransigence on the Iraqi war issue has verged on the xenophobic, even in the so-called "respectable" press. "American visitors are telling us they are unable to find the breadth of opinion we have on our website anywhere else because we report across the political spectrum rather than from just one perspective," Dennis said.
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