A study of the media suggests that large swaths of the world are ignored when being covered and that this fact may explain how American missed the 9/11 planning.
Juan Cole points to the fact that news networks need to make a profit and that reporting from places like the Central African Republic are just not good for profits. I will posit a different thesis. The west fancies itself as having manifest destiny, which they have to bring to the clueless masses in dark continents. In doing so, they generally employ local people in said dark continents, who learn the language. When the occupiers are invariably thrown out, said traitors (to be perfectly charitable) often settle in the home countries. The legacy of colonialism manifests itself in large, unintegrated expatriate communities in the former coloniser (for example, North Africans in France or South Asians in Britain). As I readily point out, integration takes time. So, for fresh immigrants, they will want to know what happens in their old countries. The media, whether the BBC, or France24, will always find it easier to send fewer people who understand the local language (which tends to be a vestige of the former colonial occupier). Hence, you'll get the best coverage of Burkina Faso, a country to poor to have its own media setup for worldwide broadcast, from the French, not the British media.
Back to the subject line, why did America miss the buildup of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan? First, Afghanistan has never been colonised by anyone for any lengthened period, so most of the western media didn't cover it. The Taliban's ideal predated the media, so they didn't fund it. Overseas Afghans are not a large group and don't tend to high places in the west. So, Afghanistan isn't on the media's radar. Since 9/11s preparation took place in Afghanistan, most of whatever clues there would have been missed.
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