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.

Case in point: The wire service is investing millions to upgrade communications among bureaus worldwide, according to senior deputy international editor Steven Komarow. The emphasis is on high-speed data links and faster portable satellite phones.

Edmonds gives the AP high marks for having a presence where few others do. "We look at [the AP] through the lens of what we see in our papers in the United States, but a very substantial portion of their business is foreign clients," and that helps pay the bills for the bureaus, he says.

Interesting, isn't it, that foreign clients are footing the bill for the coverage of international news we rely upon so heavily in the United States?

Covering big events like the Iraq War is, of course, a no-brainer for news organizations, but what about the little stories that could turn into the next war or political upheaval? Without the AP -- and a few other dedicated organizations like it -- I fear such things would go uncovered.

And that could be a big problem in a fast-changing and sometimes dangerous world.

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