As news budgets tighten and local papers continue to focus on their own communities, the disturbing question about who is covering the rest of the world becomes even more critical.

The answer, sadly, is fewer and fewer organizations. The good news is my old alma mater, The Associated Press, is stepping in to fill the void.

There's a great story about the AP's dedication to foreign news and how it covers such stories in the current issue of American Journalism Review. Some stats from the story:

The AP family tree branches out to 243 bureaus in 97 countries, serving news outlets with a potential to reach 1 billion people a day. Those numbers make the wire service the world's largest and most expensive newsgathering operation, says Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute.