The editorial is the opinion of the editorial board of The Daily Eastern News.

Foreign news and international students are two things that are often ignored by the majority of Eastern’s student body, which is composed overwhelmingly of white Americans.

Many of us can’t relate to traveling several thousand miles to a country with which we’re almost completely unfamiliar to learn complex and difficult lessons in a foreign language just to get a college degree.

Eastern’s Office of International Programs and the department of foreign languages know this, and have implemented a joint program that will help bring some culture and international representation to the television sets of on-campus international students.

Foreign news broadcasting on channel 14 began on March 1, and since then it has been used as a teaching aid in foreign language classrooms and as a link to home for our international students.

This program, called SCOLA, may provide nothing more than a voice and a few images from home for students from Asia or Europe or South America, but sometimes a voice is the most comforting thing in the world.

In addition, a good number of these programs are accompanied by English subtitles, making them useable by the entire student body. Although students may think a foreign news program from another country will be boring, it can be an enlightening experience.

“It’s interesting to see what things are important to other countries that we in the United States don’t even think about,” said Stephen Canfield, chair of the foreign language department.

But first and foremost, this creative program is for one of the smallest groups of the campus community, a group that also brings the most diversity to Eastern.

It’s not hard to imagine that being a foreign student, whether you’re a German at Eastern or an American at the University of Salzburg, can be a lonely and somewhat terrifying thing. Your only connection to home may be letters from the family and an occasional story on “Dateline NBC.”

Now international students will be able to click on the TV and get detailed information about what’s going on at home in their native tongues.

It seems like a small thing, getting your news in a language you’re comfortable with, and it may be. But most of us never have to worry about losing that little pleasure. International students no longer have that worry either.