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Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!grass
From: grass@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: A nit to pick: German on the airwave - (nf)
Message-ID: <4145@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Nov-83 22:28:02 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4145
Posted: Fri Nov 25 22:28:02 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Nov-83 04:15:21 EST
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#R:ut-sally:-44600:uiuccsb:10500011:000:651
uiuccsb!grass    Nov 25 14:11:00 1983

U.S. media people usually are not required to speak the local language, and
usually do not speak it.  Case in point.. according to a PBS
"Inside Story" presentation on U.S. correspondents in the U.S.S.R., only
one TV network has a correspondent in Moscow that actually speaks 
Russian.  

What is WORSE is that U.S. embassy personnel do not usually speak the language
of their host country either.  The foreign service tends to rotate 
assignments frequently enough (on the order of every two to three years)
that there really is no incentive to learn local languages.
Someone once suggested this is part of why we got into the Iranian hostage
mess.