What is global news, and how much of it is actually on offer? As globalization is challenged by nationalist and populistic discourses throughout the world, the purpose of the paper is to consider how the global fares in global newsrooms. With critical global journalism studies (Wasserman, Berglez) as its theoretical point of departure, and hybridity (Chadwick) and mediated cosmopolitanism (Robertson, Orgad, Silverstone) as the key concepts structuring the literature review, the paper draws on an unusually large sample to explore the question. A comparative content analysis of over 18000 headlines and 6000 news items in the broadcasts of seven global television news channels (AJE, BBCW, China’s CGTN, CNNI, DW, Euronews and RT) shows that only a small percentage of their news can be considered global, either when that concept is operationalized in terms of location and actors (nation-centred or border-transcending?), or the nature of the issue involved (global issues such as climate change or human rights). When the channels are compared, considerable variation in the ‘global’ nature of their content is revealed. The findings have methodological consequences for comparative research on the intersection between news media and politics around the world, and call into question the cosmopolitan nature of global news outlets. The research reported here -part of a larger project on protest reporting 2008-2018 -shows that even channels said to speak to the world rely heavily on national borders, even if only discursively, and highlights the advantages of an emphasis on the global ‘South’.