I remember my parents visiting the US a decade or two ago and talking about how surprised they were that the US media scarcely talks about things happening outside the country. That kind of made sense, I thought. There’s a lot of the US to talk about. Whereas the entire population of Australia is less than the population of Texas.
Then I found out how little they tell the population about things that happen inside the country. I remember seeing multiple Americans being like, ‘What do you mean other countries give us help when we have wildfires.’
And I – an Australian – was like, uhhh. We send over people and specialised firefighting choppers regularly. (And Australian firefighters have specialised knowledge there – the reason that Californian wildfires are so bad is because there was a mass planting of eucalyptus trees, which are oil rich and well adapted to surviving bushfires.)
I grew up with the evening news reporting on our bushfires saying things like ‘the US has sent over a crew and additional choppers to help fight the blaze in country New South Wales, and the CFA expects that they should have it under control soon.’ But the reverse doesn’t seem to be true in the US.
That brought home to me just how much of the US news is filtered to emphasise the US’s emphasis on individualism. It’s harder to sound believable about how little you need others when other countries are regularly pitching in to help keep your wildfires under control. It’s hard to keep a consistent message going about US exceptionalism if you admit that the country you vilify regularly as being full of people who are champing at the bit to invade your country are actually there on the ground helping you recover from a natural disaster.
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