Overview: What geopolitical events are worthy of media attention? In an ideal world, the answer to this question would be based on the merit of the event. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Media attention throughout the Western world too often reflects and reinforces Western government’s geopolitical orientations.

Building on Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, and other scholars who have examined biased media coverage, Worthy and Unworthy presents case studies depicting how media coverage of events in foreign countries differs depending on whether a country is a geopolitical enemy or an ally of the United States.

Verdict: In what is a quite compulsive and intriguing read, and from start to finish, even for the innocent bystander, this book presents case studies comparing coverage in the New York Times of comparable geopolitical events that have occurred in geopolitical allies of the United States and non-allied countries.

As the systematic analysis of both the amount of coverage these events received and the nature of the coverage shows, the Times’ coverage creates worthy and unworthy events with hyperfocus being given to geopolitical events in non-allied countries and less focus given to the events in friendly countries.

While the book focuses on the New York Times, an analysis of coverage from other media outlets shows that the Times is not alone in this tendency. Our view of geopolitical events is shaped by the media we consume.

As we all know, multiple geopolitical crises have unfolded in Europe and European countries in the last decade: a migration crisis, the Ukrainian crisis, Brexit, and a crisis of representative democracies, among others. The European Union is struggling to cope with these crises. Indeed, the term “crisis” abounds in public use by journalists, scientists, and politicians to the point “crisis” can appear to be the new normal.

So, and for example, what kind of geopolitical crisis can be observed over the period 2018–2023? Are these crises reported at the same time and with the same intensity in the media of different countries? Are they associated with the same types of events located in the same countries? Finally, to what extent can we assume the existence of a common agenda of crisis reported by media outlets from Western European countries?

Within the confines of this mighty wondrous new prose written by author Devan Hawkins, we quickly learn that the building of a framework to analyze the production of geopolitical crises by the media - from a critical perspective, and to examine how a geopolitical topic becomes a crisis from the perspectives of European newspapers - has been one long in the making and that, as things still stand, discovering whether a country is a geopolitical enemy or an ally of the United States via its reporting is still something that has to be increasingly investigated.

In closing, if you’re concerned about the Western media’s coverage of geopolitical events and whether it encourages some of the worst and most harmful aspects of US foreign policy, understanding the biases in media coverage is essential. With an increased understanding of these biases, we can help reduce them.

About the Author - Devan Hawkins has been a freelance writer for the past ten years, writing about a wide variety of subjects including foreign policy, inequality, and health. His writings have appeared in a number of outlets including The Guardian, Islamic Monthly, and CounterPunch.

This work has given him a wide experience reviewing and analyzing developments with respect to foreign policy. Professionally, he is an Assistant Professor of Public Health with a Doctor of Science Degree in epidemiology. He lives in Pepperell, MA.

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