WAR IN IRAQ KEPT AWAY FROM PUBLIC

We have been writing on this blog for months how the mainstream media in the United States has abandoned coverage of the Iraq war.

Now comes a story backing up what we have been writing.

War In Iraq Kept Away From Public

By Connecticut Post. 17 Mar 2008-->

Q: Professor News, what happened to the war in Iraq? A: If you have lost track, I am not surprised. Americans are still being killed and wounded there. So are Iraqis. Yet the war is receiving less and less news coverage.

It’s a vanishing war. Are the news media bored with it?

Last Monday The New York Times had only one story from Iraq. It was about a 2-year-old Iraqi girl who had been flown to Nashville for heart surgery. U.S. Marines picked up the expenses. Nice, but was that all there was from Iraq?

At least the Times had a heart-warming feature. Other news outlets seem to have forgotten about the war entirely unless something really bad happens to our forces.

Try to find something about the war in the March 17 issues of Time and Newsweek. Zilch.
Later Monday, five U.S. soldiers on foot patrol were reported killed in a suicide bombing. It was the deadliest attack against the U.S. military since five soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing on Jan. 28.

That got some attention on TV and radio on Monday and in the newspapers on Tuesday. It made Page 1 of The New York Times but not The Washington Post.

We can expect a lot of stories about the war in Iraq to mark its fifth anniversary next Wednesday. It was on March 19, 2003, that coalition forces, led by the U.S., started the invasion.

But after an orgy of look-backs, I bet coverage will fade again. It shouldn’t.

This war is the second longest in U.S. history, after Vietnam, and the second costliest, after World War II. About 157,000 U.S. service members are now in Iraq, many on their second or third tour. Another 10,000 are from the United Kingdom and other coalition countries.

As of March 7, 3,975 Americans had been killed in Iraq and 29,320 had been wounded. At least 81,000 Iraqi civilians — including children — have been killed in various forms of violence since March 2003. Some studies put the total at 600,000. Epidemiologists believe another 650,000 Iraqis have died from indirect causes.

The cost of the war is staggering. One estimate says it will total at least $3 trillion dollars, many times more than the official total of $600 billion to date. The $3 trillion total comes from Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate, and Linda Bilmes of Harvard University in their new book titled, appropriately, “The Three Trillion Dollar War.”

To the direct cost of the war, the two American economists added costs that will be absorbed in the defense budget (to refit the military and help veterans) and costs to our economy (for increasing an already massive deficit).

Fortunately, NPR is still filing regular reports from Iraq. “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS is still running photos, names and hometowns of American service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Otherwise, we can go for days without being told anything substantial about the war. Maybe we will see a brief item in the newspaper, or hear a passing mention on TV or radio.

Yes, the rate of violence is down in Iraq. But typically five or six Americans are killed there each week. The war is not going away. There is no end in sight.

I think it is worth at least a Page 1 box in the newspapers every day and a report near the top of every TV and radio news program.

The war in Iraq deserves much more coverage. It should still be considered a big story five years later.