The Iraq news BLACKOUT: How the press spent its summer vacation

[DeepModem Mom]

Media Matters for America: The Iraq news blackout: how the press spent its summer vacation
by Eric Boehlert

....the pullback we've seen this summer, the chronic dearth of on-the-ground reporting, likely marks a new low of the entire campaign. It's gotten to the point where even monstrous acts of destruction cannot wake the press from its self-induced slumber. Just recall the events of August 14.

That's when witnesses to the four synchronized suicide truck bombs that detonated in northern Iraq on that day described the collective devastation unleashed to being like an earthquake, or even the site of a nuclear bomb explosion; the destruction of one bomb site measured half a mile wide. A U.S. Army spokesman, after surveying the mass carnage from an attack that targeted Yazidis, an ancient religious community, called the event genocidal. Indeed, more than 500 Iraqis were killed, more than 1,500 were wounded, and 400 buildings were destroyed....In fact, with a death toll topping 500, the mid-August bombing ranks as the second deadliest terror strike ever recorded in modern times. Only the coordinated attacks on 9-11 have claimed more innocent lives. Yet the press failed to put the story in context....The next day, as noted by the Columbia Journalism Review, the story was placed on A6 in both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and Page 4 of USA Today. On that evening's NBC Nightly News, the historic massacre from Iraq was not even tapped as the day's most important story....The media's tepid response to the cataclysmic event was telling. It simply underscored how Iraq fatigue afflicts American newsrooms -- but not American households.

That Americans are obsessed about Iraq is no surprise. Polling has consistently shown they think the war is far and away the single most important issue facing the country. And it wasn't like there was no news happening in Iraq between June and August; the months formed the deadliest summer of the war for U.S. military men and women. To say nothing of the approximately 5,000 Iraqi civilians killed this summer.

Politically, the drastic news withdrawal from Iraq carries deep implications, with the debate about America's role in Iraq due to become even more heated next week as Gen. David H. Petraeus testifies before Congress and the White House produces its report on the status in Iraq. But how are Americans supposed to make informed decisions about this country's future role in Iraq if the mainstream media won't inform the public?

Also, no news from Iraq has usually meant good news for the Bush White House; whenever Iraq has faded from view in recent years, Bush and his policies often received a bump in the polls. For instance, in July, the results from a CBS/New York Times poll raised eyebrows when it found that support for the invasion of Iraq -- which for years had been tumbling -- suddenly experienced an uptick, from 35 to 42 percent.

What's telling is that during the month of July, much of the mainstream media effectively boycotted news from Iraq....

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200709050002