1
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to compare the rankings of the top ten world and domestic
events by three prominent Asian news agencies, the Central News Agency from Taiwan,
the Kyodo News Service from Japan, and the Xinhua News Service from China, from
1992 to 2001. Findings reveal some congruence as well as deviance in the patterns of
evaluating news events by the three agencies. They all kept a close eye on events in the
Asia-Pacific area, followed by North America; Latin America was the most
inconspicuous to them. Each news agency had different types of events to look for from
its neighboring nations and its own territory. The ‘good news’ syndrome with Xinhua and
the ‘bad news’ mentality with Central News and Kyodo in their approaches to domestic
news were also unmistakable. The selections of top events by each news service also
reflect its particular stance and value judgments on Asian geopolitics.