One reason Americans are unaware of international issues is because TV and other news outlets do not report on global events in detail, said Lisa Ling, host of National Geographic’s “Explorer,” during her speech Tuesday night at the Victory Theater. Instead, she said, they focus on war and other catastrophes, letting other still-troubling news slip through the cracks.

She said this trend especially affects young people and how they understand the world.

“I defy you to find a news station that consistently reports on those events,” Ling said. “Young people aren’t being given the opportunity to know about them.”

The special correspondent to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” said the American media barrages viewers with information, an effect that inhibits a person’s ability to process the information. Extensive coverage of such items as Anna Nicole Smith’s death only brainwashes those trying to be informed, she said.

Ling juxtaposed the media situation in America with that in North Korea. She said when she spent 12 days there, the visit was difficult because of the isolation the North Korean media placed over the country. She felt cut off from the rest of the world.

“It was one place I wanted to visit and the one place I really wanted to leave,” Ling said. “It was almost impossible to be curious.”

She said young people should strive to be students of the world, exploring the world to gain better knowledge of it.

“The chance to be in the world is the best education,” Ling said. “People shouldn’t be afraid to travel.”

But despite some horrific experiences, Ling said travelers should still be optimistic.

“It is evitable that humanity will always rise to the occasion,” she said. ‘Now that you know, you can’t pretend.”

Ling also detailed how travel opened her eyes about global issues. After stints working on “Scratch” and “Channel One News,” Ling traveled with the Red Cross to Afghanistan to report on its war with Russia.

There she said she witnessed children as young as 10 years old carrying weapons such as bazookas and AK-47s. It was this experience, she said, that opened her eyes to the world around her.

“It was so surreal for me because I had never seen anything like it,” Ling said.

Ling returned to the country in 1997 to find it still in shambles. She said weapons provided by Americans to fight the Soviets were now being used against fellow countrymen, causing widespread internal strife and Taliban rule.

“There was not a single wall intact,” Ling said.

But when she returned to the U.S. and shared her experiences, she said people had no idea what was going on overseas.

“There’s so much we don’t know that was going on,” Ling said.

She also discussed other alarming international issues like the rape of women in the Congo, gang violence in Latin America and the abandonment of infant girls in China.

Ling said her experiences have propelled her to promote awareness of foreign countries.