Media and money: a 50-year analysis of international news coverage and U.S. foreign aid

This study compared 50 years of the New York Times’ international news (N = 20,765) with U.S. foreign aid allocations and country rankings in Freedom House\u27s Freedom in the World report to understand how the amount of foreign aid relates to the amount and content of coverage of nations as well as whether/how political similarity impacts coverage and aid. Nations receiving the highest level of aid received the most news coverage and topics of coverage focused significantly more on politics, conflict and diplomacy. Coverage of nations that receive a high level of aid was largely split between free, partly free and not free, pointing to media attention not necessarily being linked to freedom status