This study tested the power of "elite nation" factors (trade, population, and gross national product) to predict the amount of foreign news coverage for specific countries. A composite week for the first quarter of 1975 was randomly drawn, and ten Canadian and twenty-nine United States newspapers were coded for all news items reported on those days, yielding the total number of column-inches of foreign news coverage in each country, with a breakdown by country or geographical area. As expected, a rather large discrepancy was found between Canadian coverage of the United States (49% of foreign news) and United States coverage of Canada (1.72%). However, elite nation factors proved to be poor predictors for the United States foreign news coverage, and only one of the factors, trade, showed any predictive ability for the Canadian press. The results suggest that the elite nations themselves do not base their foreign news coverage on such matters as trade relations, population distribution, or economic development. (Author/RL)