This thesis presents an overview of the statistical findings obtained from a foreign news content analysis of five New Zealand metropolitan newspapers. Through exploring the patterns and processes of news selection or "gatekeeping" working at New Zealand newspapers within the specific case study of foreign news, the study offers helpful insights into the editorial policies regarding foreign news, the organisational and bureaucratic settings that are at work in New Zealand newspapers and, the resultant world's image reflected in newspapers. The study investigates the convergences and differences in foreign news usage across metropolitan newspapers, the news values and other discourses structuring foreign news in each news organisation. The research also analyses the tasks of foreign news editors in the selection and presentation of news, the editorial policies that frame their work, and other forces outside the newsroom that colour foreign news. For this, 60 copies of the five New Zealand metropolitan newspapers were examined during the year 2002. The analysis demonstrates that foreign news constitutes a regular portion of the total newshole of New Zealand's metropolitan press and it is characterized by a reliance on international news agencies. The study also shows that inordinate attention is paid to the news topics of Military Violence, Crime, and Domestic Politics, and to a small number of countries and regions, amongst them, Australia, US and UK, receiving almost three-fifths of the total foreign news coverage.