Make international editorials relate to local issues.

Even Americans care about international issues, especially in engaging editorials.

BE READ!

The main objective for the editorial writer is to be read. The subject of the editorial is important, but not as important as being read. This goes for international editorials as well as the national and local ones.

The international editorial is just as relevant as the political editorial, the financial, or the local one. Editorials on any subject you find it relevant to report on are relevant - as are editorials on some subjects you would never report on.

But international editorials are normally more difficult to write because the reader is more distant from the theme - as is the writer. The writing must therefore be even better than for a local editorial, which has its own attractions.

Readers care about international affairs. Even Americans. You can write the international editorials in a number of ways to engage people and make them read.

One is to make them look local. When it is a theme like ex-Yugoslavia or Somalia where American troops are sent in, personification or localizing should not be too difficult. The same goes for the embargo of Iraqi oil that might affect the price of oil all over the world, including the local gas station, the owner's profit, and hence the contribution to the church and local tax revenue.

Good writers - as we all are - may also use the fact that readers have feelings and care. Whether it is about the execution of human rights activists in Nigeria, the killing of whales outside Norway, or the French nuclear testing at Muroroa, the editorial is one of the main means of building an opinion.

The crowds that march and demonstrate are more likely to do so after your deep-felt and harsh editorial than before. The Norwegian ambassador and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway are more likely to recommend to step killing whales after 117 editorials and 18 demonstrations than without them.

To put it in NCEW terms, "Everyone has opinions. Yours can make a difference." This is also true in an international context.

Location makes a difference

This said, I admit that we face a great difference between writing international editorials in a national newspaper in Norway, as I do, and in a local newspaper in the United States or Canada, as most of you do. Norway is close to the world; the United States and Canada are distant. The Norwegian economy is very vulnerable to the world economy; yours is not.

Yours are huge countries; mine is very small. I share borders with the Russians; you do not. Norway and the Norwegians are almost instantaneously affected by resolutions in EU headquarters in Brussels. You probably don't care about them. Many Norwegians are familiar with the American Oil Pollution Act and the Jones Act regulating sea traffic, whereas I think no Norwegian law is vital to you or your readers.

Should the small and mid-sized paper even try? To me, the size does not matter, but the content does. The editorials should reflect or match the content of the rest of the paper. If you never print anything else on foreign affairs, there seem few reasons to write many editorials on the subject. The more locally focused you are, the fewer international editorials.

But if you feel strongly about some international question, chances are high that ether people do, too. Risk it.

NCEW member Stein B. Hauglid is the political editor of Dagens Naeringsliv in Oslo, Norway.