Yesterday, @CNNTravel published this story on an attractive Kazakh Mongolian eagle hunter. It makes my blood boil, and I'll tell you why. (a thread)

It's a near-exact replica of a story that @VICENews published by @JulianMorgans about the same eagle hunter exactly a year ago.

This plagarism in itself is actually not what I'm upset about. This is strangely common journalistic practice.

I'm upset about the way that Mongolia is covered in international news media.

It might seem strange that I remember a silly article that I read a year ago. But Mongolians and people who study Mongolia remember articles like this because there is so little international news coverage of the country. When CNN or Vice write about Mongolia, it gets noticed.

To say that Mongolia is underrepresentd in world media is an understatement. In the NYT archive, which dates back to 1851 and holds more than 13 million articles, there are a mere 9,004 articles that even mention Mongolia.

Indeed, Mongolia is what political scientist Dr. Elad Segev, who studies international news flows, classifies as 'an invisible country.' In data from 2008 to 2015, Monglia is one of the least covered countries in the world, generating only 0.05 percent of mentions.

When Mongolia is covered, that coverage all too often promotes a stereotypical vision of Mongolia as a land beyond time, ignoring important modern issues that could benefit from global press coverage.

A few examples:

- Several prominent Mongolia political leaders have recently been imprisoned, an alarming sign that democracy is in trouble.

- More than 10,000 Mongolians are trapped outside the country due to coronavirus, some of them now homeless in the US and Europe.

- There is an ongoing trial for an anti-trans hate crime. The victim's attorney is being threatened by an ultra-right nationalist group.

- There were parliamentary elections in June that were barely covered by international news media. There are presidential elections this year

And there is also fun cultural news! There are tech entrepreneurs bringing in new credit systems, there are bands (besides The Hu!) putting out exciting new albums, there are artists creating things, new restaurants opening, and designers creating cool new clothes.

But often, when Mongolian journalists or people like me who cover Mongolia pitch stories, we are ignored or turned down because they don't fit this stereotypical, exoticized version of what the West wants to think of when it thinks of Mongolia.

Please don't get me wrong. Eagle hunters are cool. Jenisbek Tserik is sexy. Aisholpan Nurgaiv is awesome.

But there is a whole lot more happening in Mongolia besides eagle hunting, and that needs to be reported on, too.