Published: July 23, 1999
Last Updated: January 10, 2000
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Many papers today are focusing on "local, local," but maybe a better mantra is "local, local ... plus." Why? Because in an increasingly interdependent world, foreign events oftentimes are really local stories. Examples:  Virginia tobacco growers are worried about growing imports from Brazil (Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch). Nebraska's best disease-resistant wheat comes from a threatened seed source in Turkey (The Christian Science Monitor). The residents of Hopewell, Va., mostly have doctors from Asia and Africa to thank for their medical care (Hopewell (Va.) News).    "The emphasis on local news is really a problem of finding space for essential news in a shrinking news hole." -Jonathan Kellogg, executive editor, Waterbury (Conn.) Republican-American Most readers are interested in knowing about what happens at home and important developments around the world. "Important" would include the death of a youthful, independent -minded British princess. But also: How relations between men and women are changing in Africa, perhaps inspired by American women ... perhaps attributable to AIDS. The latest teen-age shoe-style fad in London, perhaps heading this way. The elusive search for peace among Catholics and Protestants in a country from which many emigrated to the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century.  Factional fighting in Bosnia, and the U.S. response.  These broad stories could play in any newspaper in America. One size, of course, does not fit all. What is good for Topeka may not be good for Toledo. But there are fresh ideas aplenty - many of them to be found in the newspaper's back yard.