[lbo-talk] Iraq War Coverage (was Curiosity Re: NYT editorial on terror bill)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 10/1/06, Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
> the
> newspaper's real power is manifested in its ability
> to dictate what events are worth reporting about,
> and how are they to be covered. When the NY Times
> decides that some event is worth covering, its lead
> is quickly followed up by most of the rest of the
> US media.

I am still not convinced of the New York Times' power to define the
other media's news coverage, but let's assume the paper does have such
power.

As I have been watching the New York Times' coverage of the Iraq War,
there are clear tendencies:

Iraqi Casualties

When it reports on Iraqi civilian casualties, especially with photos,
they are almost always (99.9% of the times?) those who were either
actually killed or allegedly killed by Sunni insurgents, Shi'i
militias, or foreign Muslim terrorists.  Rarely do we see reports on
Iraqi civilians killed by US troops or Iraqi troops, commandos, etc.
paid for by Washington.  Just looking at its coverage, the impression
one gets is that US troops hardly ever kill any civilians, a majority
of whom are killed by Iraqis or foreign Muslims, excepting rare cases
such as Haditha.

Targets of Iraqi and Foreign Muslim Attacks

When it reports on the targets of attacks by Sunni insurgents, Shi'i
militias, and foreign Muslim terrorists in Iraq, the impression one
gets from its coverage is that their attacks' main targets are Iraqi
civilians, not US, Coalition, and Iraqi Security Forces troops.
According to the US Department of Defense, however, "Nationally, in
April 2006, civilians were the target of 11% of attacks; this
increased to 15% in June 2006.  Baghdad showed a more pronounced shift
in the targeting of civilians compared to the national trend. In
Baghdad, civilian targets comprised 15% of total attacks in April and
22% in June" ("Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq," Report to
Congress in accordance with the Department of Defense Appropriations
Act 2006 [Section 9010], August 2006, p. 31-32,
<http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Security-Stabilty-ReportAug29r1.pdf>).
 So, it seems to me that news ought to be that, while more civilians
have become targets of Iraqi and foreign Muslim attacks, the majority
of their attacks' targets are still US, other Coalition, and Iraqi
Security Forces troops, but that is not the case in the NYT coverage
of the war.

The above tendencies probably exist in all the US corporate media,
though, imho, such tendencies would exist with or without the NYT.

The tendencies are probably not shared by the media in the Middle
East, even conservative ones.  That is why it is important for us to
learn the languages spoken there, so we'll know what's being said in
their media, though Mosaic <http://www.linktv.org/mosaic/>, Juan Cole,
etc. provide some samples from them for our benefit.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>