U.S. media curtail Iraq war coverage: study
By Jim Wolf
Reuters
U.S. media reporting of the war in Iraq fell sharply in the second quarter of 2007, largely due to a drop in coverage of the Washington-based policy debate, a study released Monday said.
Taken together, the war's three major story lines -- the U.S. policy debate, events in Iraq and their impact on the U.S. homefront -- slipped roughly a third, to 15 percent of an index of total news coverage, down from 22 percent in the first three months of the year.
The study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism examined 18,010 stories that appeared between April 1 and June 29. Its "News Coverage Index" encompasses 48 outlets, including newspapers, radio, online, cable and network television.
The project is a research group studying and evaluating press performance. It describes itself as nonpartisan, nonideological and nonpolitical. The index is designed as an audit of a broad cross-section of U.S. news media.
The 2008 presidential campaign -- with its crowded field for the Democratic and Republican party nominations -- emerged as the top story in U.S. media in the second quarter, overtaking the Iraq policy debate, the biggest thread of the three Iraq-related storylines, the survey found.
Attention to the war dropped in all five media sectors surveyed. Network evening news, the sector that gave the war the greatest share of attention in the first quarter, scaled back more than 40 percent, from 33 percent in the first quarter to 19 percent in the second, the study showed.
On cable television, another leader in first-quarter coverage, the slide was nearly as great, from 23 percent of news reported to 14 percent -- a drop of 39 percent, the project said.
(Continued here.)
Reuters
U.S. media reporting of the war in Iraq fell sharply in the second quarter of 2007, largely due to a drop in coverage of the Washington-based policy debate, a study released Monday said.
Taken together, the war's three major story lines -- the U.S. policy debate, events in Iraq and their impact on the U.S. homefront -- slipped roughly a third, to 15 percent of an index of total news coverage, down from 22 percent in the first three months of the year.
The study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism examined 18,010 stories that appeared between April 1 and June 29. Its "News Coverage Index" encompasses 48 outlets, including newspapers, radio, online, cable and network television.
The project is a research group studying and evaluating press performance. It describes itself as nonpartisan, nonideological and nonpolitical. The index is designed as an audit of a broad cross-section of U.S. news media.
The 2008 presidential campaign -- with its crowded field for the Democratic and Republican party nominations -- emerged as the top story in U.S. media in the second quarter, overtaking the Iraq policy debate, the biggest thread of the three Iraq-related storylines, the survey found.
Attention to the war dropped in all five media sectors surveyed. Network evening news, the sector that gave the war the greatest share of attention in the first quarter, scaled back more than 40 percent, from 33 percent in the first quarter to 19 percent in the second, the study showed.
On cable television, another leader in first-quarter coverage, the slide was nearly as great, from 23 percent of news reported to 14 percent -- a drop of 39 percent, the project said.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
Does Broadcast Media’s commercial consideration force them to sacrifice Real News for sensational, calamity or easy-to-cover stories ?
Or, is it their penchant for mind-control that drives them ?
How does that slogan go … “I’ll Report What I Think is Important, and You Will Decide that I’m Right” or something like that.
Thank goodness for people like VoxVerax for checking the International Media and keeping the Real News flowing. The value of bloggers is the only counter to being blinded by the Right (or Liberal) Media (depending upon your perspective.)
Bush’s poll numbers are rising because the public isn’t paying attention to Iraq. Oh sure, they report when four suicide truck bomb attack in northern Iraq killing at least 500 members of the Yazidi religious sect (mainly ethnic Kurds) but then media mimics the White House lingo and attributes it to bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. That was a one-to-two day story … no follow up even though the residents complained that they were not even getting water link .
But the day-to-day events are not covered.
What have you missed ?
How about PM al-Maliki visiting President Ahmadinejad in Tehren … and this week will visit Syria President Bashar al-Assad link . Why does al-Maliki see it advantageous to engage those countries but Bush does not ?
Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, governor of Muthanna province, was killed by a roadside bomb. This is the second governor to be killed in less than ten days. Besides being the governor, both were senior leaders of the Badr Organization and members of the Shi'ite Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC). link Who could be killing these SIIC / Badr leaders ? Is this bin Laden’s al-Qaeda or an internal civil war between people vying for power ?
Meanwhile, Al-Maliki and his Dawa party have formed a coalition with two Kurdish parties Shi'ite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and Maliki's Shi'ite Dawa party to prop up his government which has faced boycotts from Sunni and supporters of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's link Why does al-Maliki not seek out the Sunnis ? The Kurds, Dawa and SIIC favor strong regional entities while al-Sadr wants a united Iraq. Does al-Maliki feel that he can win a civil war ?
So based on the stories VoxVerax has reported on the Brits leaving Basra, I can only surmise that if America invaded Iraq for Oil, we failed. Basra which is in the southern part for Iraq and where there are regular internal battles for control amongst the rival Shi'ite groups. So, who will al-Maliki turn to for protection if he needs it … IRAN.
But these are the stories that you won’t see on broadcast media
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