grass@uiuccsb.UUCP (11/26/83)
#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.