Which Disasters Make International News?

After a major disaster, people often assume the whole world will hear about it. A new study suggests that international news attention is much less even. Researchers examined how media outlets in many countries reported disasters abroad and found that some kinds of events attract far more coverage than others. [1]

The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour on August 14, analyzed about 135 million news articles from 466 outlets in 123 countries and 44 languages. The researchers connected those stories with records of natural disasters between 2016 and 2023. [1][2]

Sudden, dramatic events received the strongest international attention. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and wildfires were more likely to appear in foreign news. Slower or more familiar hazards, including floods, droughts, storms and extreme temperatures, generally received less cross-border coverage. [1]

Severity still mattered. Disasters with more deaths tended to receive more attention, especially when the number of fatalities was very high. But the type of disaster mattered too, which means two serious events could receive very different levels of international visibility. [1][2]

Connections between countries also influenced coverage. News outlets paid more attention to disasters in places with stronger social or cultural links to their own country. Distance alone did not explain the pattern. [1][3]

This matters because news attention can shape what international audiences notice, discuss and support. The researchers do not argue that journalists deliberately ignore slower disasters. Instead, their results show how news values, dramatic images and relationships between countries can influence which emergencies travel across borders. [1][2]

For readers, the study offers a useful question to ask when a disaster dominates the headlines: what other serious events might be happening without receiving the same international attention?