What’s Suddenly Hot Is Old News Here

WASHINGTON--It wasn’t long ago that cost-cutting news outlets in America saw overseas coverage as an extravagance they couldn’t afford. At the same time, “The World” from Public Radio International was giving its listeners daily, in-depth reports from around the globe, making them familiar with places and names that probably seemed exotic and far removed from their own lives.

Names like Al Qaeda. Or Kandahar. Or the Taliban.

“This show has been out there with a searchlight well ahead of most American media,” said Stephen L. Salyer, president and chief executive of PRI, the Minneapolis-based public radio network that produces the show, which airs locally from noon to 1 p.m. weekdays on KCRW-FM (89.9). “Well before Sept. 11, ‘The World’ had built a very strong and loyal listenership around the country.”

Then the terrorist attacks jerked the media’s attention back to countries where they once had bureaus, and showed Americans that foreign news can quickly turn local.

“This was always in our lens,” said Lisa Mullins, host of the show that originated in 1996 as a co-production of PRI, affiliate station KGBH-FM in Boston and the British Broadcasting Corp. “If you listen to American radio and American TV, there’s a frighteningly small amount of international coverage. It was a luxury. Now it’s a necessity.

“We’ve been trying to do it in depth, and tailor it to an American audience,” she said. “Specifically, we’re trying to show America’s connection to the world.”

In June 2000 “The World” aired a report on a suspected terrorist camp in Afghanistan that trained Pakistani, Saudi and other foreign Islamic militants. The following month the show featured stories on terrorist groups raising money in the United States, and Taliban leaders’ attempts to reach out to foreign leaders.

In May, “The World” reported what the trials of several participants in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings revealed about the shadowy Al Qaeda terrorist network and its reputed leader, Osama bin Laden.

“They cover things on an ongoing basis. That’s a testimony to their covering the most in-depth story they possibly can,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp. in Washington, whom “The World” tapped for his analysis on Sept. 11.

“The producers have a higher degree of expertise than I’ve encountered in a lot of places. They do their homework. It’s certainly not sensationalist,” said Hoffman, who said he’s asked to be on the show about every three months.

“One of the interesting things about ‘The World,’ I was on much more often when there was nothing going on with terrorism,” he said, a nod to the fact that the show’s producers don’t wait for the headlines or the “sexy hook” to chase a story.

“I have a very high opinion of it,” Hoffman said. “I read two newspapers every morning, and I feel this is the radio version of that.”

Salyer said “The World” grew out of international coverage on “Marketplace,” PRI’s business-news show that originates at USC in Los Angeles. But there wasn’t enough time within that half-hour program to flesh out all the global topics Americans ought to hear about, he said.

“There wasn’t a facet of our life that wasn’t increasingly global in character,” he said.

When it first went on the air six years ago, “The World” reached only 38 stations. Now 127 stations across the country carry the show, which reaches an audience of more than 1.1 million listeners a week. And since Sept. 11, 15 stations have added the show--along with its stable of reporters and the 900 BBC correspondents worldwide to which it has access--to their lineups.

“Having those contacts in place well beforehand was extremely helpful,” Mullins said. “We felt as though we were so ahead of the game. We were able to advance the story and anticipate issues. We knew who the hot people were on each subject.

“We reached Hamid Karzai [the anti-Taliban rebel commander and new Afghan prime minister] before I recall seeing him on any other news outlet,” she said.

On the second day after the attacks, the show had Ahmed Rashid, author of “The Taliban,” to discuss the importance of Pakistan in the hunt for Bin Laden. He subsequently began popping up as a talking head on every network imaginable.

“They think of themselves as a newsmagazine of the air,” said Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, another Sept. 11 commentator who has appeared on the show numerous times. “They do quite a good job of taking you to a part of the world and making you feel like you’re there. By the time you’ve heard three minutes, you really want to know how this ends.

“It provides a source of information of how events far away can affect ‘average Americans,’ whether it’s in the Brazilian rain forest, or Yugoslavia, or Central Asia,” Walt said.

And the people behind the show insist they want to make sure “The World” isn’t a dry, hourlong geography seminar.

Every day the program features the “Geo Quiz,” in which Mullins gives clues about a location on the planet and listeners have to guess what she’s describing. And the “World Hit” showcases a musician or group every day, though even these lighter features can have a deeper resonance.

In late September, reporter Marco Werman interviewed a performer in Bosnia who continued playing with his multiethnic bandmates, despite the devastation to their country. When asked how they could keep playing, Dragi Sestic responded, “It’s a fight against this ugly reality. You have to continue life. You have to show to this, this evil, that they can’t break your spirit. I mean you have to continue your normal life, otherwise they’ve won.”

Mullins said stories like that are what highlight the main purpose of “The World,” to reveal the connections Americans have with people around the globe. “We’ve been able to stay at arm’s length and kind of have pity for people in those situations. Now he’s giving us advice,” she said. “Suddenly we’re going through the exact same experience with these people. It’s the beauty of public radio that we can do that. If the story is strong enough, people will be engaged.

“People will hear other stories as we break away from the news of the day. They’ll stop thinking of international news as being remote. To be hearing about divorcees in Egypt or cooking habits in Rio de Janeiro or teenagers surviving trauma in Sudan--suddenly it becomes just interesting news.”

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“The World” can be heard weekdays from noon to 1 p.m. on KCRW-FM (89.9).