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I feel as if I live in two different worlds. One world is the United States, where my wife and I live in Michigan, her home state. Then there's the rest of the world. I travel frequently to Ghana in Africa and England, my home country. Occasionally I also visit other countries. Oddly enough, there's a certain sameness to all of these, at least in the area about which I'm writing. Let me explain.
In January I was in Ghana. Almost every day I was able to watch CNN International on the television in my hotel room. Where this was not possible, I could listen to the BBC World Service on my portable radio.
CNN International is a channel that comes out of London. It's owned by CNN in Atlanta but is quite different from the U.S. version. Its focus is far more international, as is the BBC World Service, which is available 24/7 on radio in Ghana's capital city of Accra and can be heard across much of the globe.
The BBC, like CNN, also has an international television news channel called BBC World. Satellite subscribers in most countries can receive this channel along with CNN International.
But not viewers in the United States. In America, neither CNN International nor BBC World is available.
For whatever reasons, although many of us in the United States have access to half a dozen or so 24-hour news channels, not one of the international news channels is available here. The result is that Americans' view of the world is somewhat narrow-we miss the broader coverage found elsewhere.
This is what I mean by saying that I live in two different worlds.
When I'm overseas I watch international news programs whose primary focus truly is international. As soon as I return to America, the U.S. presidential election is about all there is. No wonder most Americans see themselves and their country as the central focus of everything.
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