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Revision with unchanged content. Some argue that an elite newspaper reflects the culture of the country where it is published. If it is correct, does the research on Le Monde (France) and Asahi Shimbun (Japan) help to interpret the cultures of the two countries? This study explores how Le Monde and Asahi Shimbun, two prestigious news pa pers from economically developed and free-press countries, report in ter na tio nal news. It investigated and compared the international news on the front page of the two newspapers (from March to August, 2005). By coding the story types, countries/regions, topics and news sources, the study dis co vered that the two newspapers had significant differences in their coverage of foreign countries. The research found that not only did Le Monde have a lar ger percentage of international news on its front page than Asahi, but also that Le Monde s "foreign news abroad" accounted for a larger percentage of in ternational stories than Asahi´s. In other words, Asahi was more inward looking (i.e. printing more "foreign news at home" and "home news abroad" stories) than Le Monde. The book is aimed not only at academic researchers but also at professionals in the news industry.

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Editor for Nikkei Business Publications, Inc., Tokyo, received his MS in 2007 from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University.

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