Does local news always dominate newspaper front-page news? A study of the Kuwait Times, 2017-2019

Abstract

Newspapers publish the most important stories on their front pages. In this study, the authors analyzed front-page news stories in the Kuwait Times, between 2017 and 2019, to determine whether local news was more prevalent than international stories or vice versa. The study also categorized and examined the front-page stories published in that period. Results show that the Kuwait Times published fewer local (31.7%) than international stories (68.3%). Stories about government and politics (46.8%) were most prominent. These findings contradict the expectation that newspapers generally publish more local than international stories. The caveat is that Kuwait’s expatriate population is about three times that of locals.