Media attention on Iraq began to wane after the first months of fighting, but as recently as the middle of last year, it was still the most-covered topic. Since then, Iraq coverage by major American news sources has plummeted, to about one-fifth of what it was last summer, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The drop in coverage parallels -- and may be explained by -- a decline in public interest. Surveys by the Pew Research Center show that more than 50 percent of Americans said they followed events in Iraq "very closely" in the months just before and after the war began, but that slid to an average of 40 percent in 2006, and has been running below 30 percent since last fall.
The above is from Richard Perez-Pena's "The War Endures, but Where’s the Media?" (New York Times). It is dangerous to extrapolate from only one poll. Were other polls to yield similar findings, it would go to (a) apathy in the American people and (b) failure on the part of the media to convey an ongoing war. (An illegal war, but most in the media won't cop to that.) Equally true that a drop in interest -- as one poll found -- that coincides with a drop coverage ties the two together and we're dealing with the period when White House was on spin patrol.
Bonnie e-mails to remind that I forgot to include The Third Estate Sunday Review's content yesterday, my apologies:
The 4,000 mark
Truest statement of the week
A note to our readers
Editorial: NO judgement
TV: Broadcasting False Narratives
There's only one fighter in the Democratic race
Roundtable
Liang's comments to Barack Obama
Hillary spoke about Iraq, Panhandle Media blacked it out
Mr. Pretty Speeches offers a 'history' lesson
Theft, C.I.'s not Bambi's speechwriter
Highlights
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