Im normally all for having a go at Americans for being so insula, and not realising there is a rest of the world out there, well, the NSA know, but, you know... stereotypes and all that.
But in all fairness, the Ukraine borders the EU and there are political ties or ambitions there concerning the EU. No, I don't know all the details and I wont pretend to, but ultimately, it affects the EU. The US, on the other hand, is a world away and frankly what goes on in the Ukraine is not exactly a big deal to the US or its people. Yes, on a being informed of big events in the world level, it should be reported in the US, but I can understand the US not being that interested. Im sure there are levels of concern for the US, but its a much bigger deal to us in Europe.
I'm in the USA, it's not about snow or football, so it's (embarrassingly) not front page news on the various tv news sites. It is showing up on the nytimes & washington post. so that's something.
I'm in the USA, am I'm aware of it - but only because I listen to NPR on my commute and I'm signed up for the Quartz Daily Newsletter (qz.com - I recommend it). Unfortunately, neither are hugely popular news sources in the US (outside of certain circles).
Well, apparently there is no trace of Ukraine on the front pages of cnn.com and msnbc.com, and barely a mention on foxnews.com, so it seems that - in the states - that's probably your best bet.
I think blaming "MSM" is becoming an increasingly poor excuse in an age where you are free to compose your own news feed in places like Twitter - even Tumblr.
I'm sure many of the people unaware of what is going on in Ukraine didn't follow the MSM to begin with.
Fair enough, but for me, I've generally used a quick peek at CNN and a relatively large newspaper site as my "Is there some major world event happening right now" filter. Clearly, I was mistaken. Switching to the international edition of CNN seems to be a reasonable start.
Those are infotainment / political agitprop sites. May as well complain about TMZ not covering it. If you go to bb.co.uk or reuters.com or news.google.com or reddit its front page news.
The problem is they did a "bait and switch", those sites started as news sites, however the US public don't know or (most likely) don't care that what most consider news aren't covered anymore.
To be honest, it's perfectly reasonable, there's a 0% chance of it affecting the average US citizen.
To be fair, the media covered the protests pretty well when it started and there was the possibility of joining the EU and thumbing their noses at Putin... there's just been a bit of typical fatigue on a long-running political story lately.
What many don't realize is that large news organizations often provide two views of the news. One is a view aimed toward the local audience, and focuses on in-country events, and includes a lot of sports and entertainment.
The other view is aimed toward the international audience and focuses on events of world wide importance or interest.
A typical US visitor to a news site will get the local view at US sites, and the international view at non-US sites. Al Jazeera doesn't cover "Arab Idol" the way CNN covers "American Idol", for instance, not because Al Jazeera is serious and CNN is fluff, but rather because Al Jazeera's "Arab Idol" coverage will be in its edition aimed at Arab countries, which US viewers won't see. (Yes, there is an "Arab Idol", and it is as big in Arab countries as "American Idol" is in the US).
American news have been covering it as well. I don't watch TV news so I can't comment there, but at least NPR has had lots of coverage (albeit lots of it comes through their broadcasts of the BBC) and it shows up in Google News as well.
Actually, Ukraine's natural gas production has been picking up. Significant shale deposits have been found and off-shore drilling has begun in the Black Sea.
