Stars and Stripes, in its print form, is not distributed in the United States. But an important part of its congressionally mandated mission is to keep its readers abroad up to date on what is happening back home. A large amount of its content comes from syndicated outlets whose writers are mostly serving up news and information to a domestic audience. Sending that content abroad lets Stripes’ customers read the same things their countrymen are reading back home.

Now here’s the rub: Sometimes articles deal with certain opportunities available to stateside readers, and overseas readers wonder whether they are available to them too. Often the opportunities involve cultural matters — new movies to be seen, for instance, or music to be heard, or books to be read, or video games to be played.

Or television shows to be watched. Specifically, those that can be watched through Web sites. That was the subject of a Wall Street Journal article run at length by Stripes earlier this month. It told of Americans who were discontinuing their cable television connections in favor of getting their favorite shows via the Internet. It quoted a researcher as saying that "complete episodes of about 90 percent of prime-time network television shows and roughly 20 percent of cable shows are now available online."

Available online to domestic viewers, that is. As a reader pointed out in a letter published a few days later, people overseas can access few of those viewing options. "While the information is very enlightening about the ability to watch stateside broadcasts from the Internet and save money, those opportunities are extremely limited overseas due to broadcast laws and studio licensing," wrote Capt. Tony M. Wickman of Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

Stripes staffers then looked into the matter and, in a follow-up article, backed Capt. Wickman’s complaint. Though some shows are available on a limited basis on U.S. military installations through such sites as Hulu.com, "[m]any would-be Web viewers [overseas] are greeted with a message that indicates the program is not available in their area, " reporter Mark Abramson wrote. The absence of overseas distribution agreements seems to be the hangup.

The problem is faced not only by Stripes, but by any newspaper that essentially publishes news from one country but is distributed in others, including USA Today’s International Edition, The Wall Street Journal Europe/Asia, the International Herald-Tribune, and The Financial Times (from the U.K.).

In Stripes’ case, one topic that requires careful checking for overseas availability is movies. The paper prints many articles about new films and film stars, all from U.S. wire services or other newspapers. Fortunately, according to Stripes’ features editor, Brian Bowers, most first-run movies are available through the Army and Air Force Exchange Service on U.S. military bases overseas very quickly after they open stateside — in some cases the same day. So overseas readers can enjoy a film almost at the same time that they read about it. Getting a handle on availability of independent films is a little harder, Bowers says. In all cases, editors try to run articles close to the AAFES show times.

Capt. Wickman criticized Stripes for "not doing your homework" with respect to the online TV article. He pointed out that the article was highlighted in a front-page "tease" (in the Europe and Mideast editions). That probably was a mistake, giving the impression to overseas readers that they too could avail themselves of the service. Still, vetting every article to make sure overseas readers were always taken into account would require a small army of editors doing nothing else.

Making the effort on a selective basis would make friends of many readers outside the country, and I think that would have been a good idea in the case of TV shows not exactly seen round the world.

Got a question or suggestion for the ombudsman on what appears, or should appear, in Stars and Stripes? Send an e-mail to ombudsman@stripes.osd.mil, or phone 202-761-0945 in the States. For several links associated with this column, please go to David Mazzarella’s Readers’ Corner blog. It can be found at http://blogs.stripes.com/blogs/readerscorner