I can appreciate that there’s sometimes an ebb and flow to media coverage of a major news story, but when it comes to Iraq and the growing number of American casualties, this is not the time for the press to be distracted.
Many Americans may not realize it, but last month was one of the deadliest months in Iraq for U.S. troops since the invasion. Since “major combat operations” ceased 14 months ago, July 2004 had the fourth highest number of U.S. casualties. What’s worse, this month is already on pace to exceed last month’s tragic total.
With this in mind, I’d like to recommend a must-read item in today’s Salon from Eric Boehlert on recent (pre-Najaf flare up) media coverage of Iraq. Boehlert believes, and I strongly agree, that many outlets saw the June 28 “hand over” as a key transition date that helped bring stability to the country. But as the media shifted attention elsewhere, the violence actually got worse.
The hand-over marked a turning point in the level and intensity of media interest, which sharply decreased, particularly on the 24-hour cable news channels. “Clearly the volume in press coverage has gone way down,” says [Steven Cook, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations]. “‘Sleepy’ is a good word to describe it. The coverage doesn’t compare with anything we’d seen during the previous 12 months from Iraq. The drop-off has been noticeable.”
“From the very beginning this has been an administration that wanted to hide the toll of the war — and the media have been absolutely complicit in that,” says Nancy Lessin, co-founder of the antiwar group Military Families Speak Out. Lessin’s stepson, a Marine, served in Iraq during the spring of 2003. “In April of this year, violence in Iraq was up and it was hard to keep the war off the front pages. But as soon as possible the pictures changed. Since June 28, [the war has] been off the front pages again.”
[…]
[C]onsidered as a whole from July 1 to the present, coverage of Iraq seems to have diminished. “It’s incredible how the press has veered away from Iraq” since June 28, says Peter Singer, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution. Last week “six U.S. soldiers were killed in 24 hours, and there was nothing. If you’re President Bush and you see headlines about Martha Stewart and Laci Peterson, you’ve got to count yourself lucky, because that means the focus is no longer on Iraq.”