Where have all the Iraq Stories gone?

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Television Networks Fade To Black As The U.S. Surge Succeeds In Iraq

The above link is a great story from Investors Business Daily on the reduced coverage the Media is giving Iraq now that it looks better than it had earlier this year. The article highlights a study by the Media Research Center that notes in looking at the newscasts of the ABC, CBS and NBC a trend that "as the news from Iraq has steadily improved, the war has practically disappeared from TV screens".

The article notes that during the President's talk of the troop surge (11 months ago) the networks were "openly hostile" and now since the early fall, there has been a marked change in what is being reported from Iraq and the number of stories that are coming from the networks' anchors.

From the article:

In October, as the number of U.S. troop deaths dropped to their lowest levels in a year and a half, the networks trimmed their war coverage by 40%, to 108 stories. Most of the coverage continued the negative spin. NBC's Richard Engel argued in an Oct. 14 report that the continuing war has hurt U.S. security. "The war in Iraq created a giant recruiting tool for al-Qaida," Engel asserted.

Only in November did all three networks begin to shift their coverage away from the pessimism that prevailed for most of the year. Yet as the news became unmistakably good — fewer casualties, displaced refugees returning — TV coverage dropped by another 38%, to a mere 68 stories.

Combined, all three networks in the month of November aired just 11 reports actually from the war zone itself. ABC's World News has stood out as the best of the Big Three in documenting this new, more encouraging phase of the Iraq War.

Next time you are watching the news and a article on Iraq comes on, note the tone in the story. Does it reflect the overall pessimism that the media anchors openly expressed on the Iraq war and/or the surge. And if there are no stories on Iraq, ask yourself why? Certainly if things were continuing as is or were even getting worse, we would be hearing about it as the top story. Can things really be turning around in Iraq. If the metric is how much is being reported by the evening newscasts, I would venture to say yes.

Outspoken Roman