Here is a Public Editor who lays out the media problem.
"We're not getting the straight story from the media." she says. "It's frustrating."
Big stories, dangerous conditions hinder coverage of Iraq situation
Sunday, June 06, 2004
Public editor: Stories in May didn't give wide view of conditions
Reader Teresa Bricker has a personal hunger for news out of Iraq: Her husband is there with the Oregon National Guard.
Yet Bricker says she only sees limited news in The Oregonian of violence and abuse in Iraq, and has read little about her husband's unit since it left for Iraq in March. The coverage, she says, gives her no sense of what is happening throughout the country and to her husband's unit. "How do we get a read on how the country is right now?" asks Bricker, of Beavercreek.
A review of The Oregonian's coverage of Iraq mostly confirms Bricker's view of the coverage as too limited. Of the 151 local and wire-service stories about Iraq published in The Oregonian in May, most involved prison abuse or deaths from intense fighting. One addressed the conditions for U.S. soldiers in Iraq, while only one focused on the struggles of Oregon soldiers there. None gave a detailed portrait of everyday life in Iraq, and few indicated whether Iraqis' lives are improving, although recent stories have focused on forming the government.
Supporters of the Bush administration are quick to blame the liberal media for highlighting what's going wrong. Sgt. Maj. Lewis Matson, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, says he understands reporters are skeptical of his public reports on what he promotes as improvements in Iraqi conditions, from employment levels to schooling, from sewer and water services to oil production. Yet he doesn't see them addressed by independent reporting, either.
But the coverage reflects the essential news priorities of covering any conflict or war: When more than 800 U.S. soldiers have died, including ones from Oregon, and Iraqi civilians are killed, or if Iraqi prisoners are being abused, that absolutely needs to be covered. That news, in turn, dominates The Oregonian's limited space.
Another major factor narrowing the coverage has been the unsafe and unstable state of Iraq, which has severely limited the mobility of reporters. Reporting in Iraq has become more deadly. In all of last year, 13 journalists were killed in Iraq. So far this year, at least 15 have died.
Joel Campagna, the Mideast Program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, recites incidents of carjackings and shootings involving journalists in recent months. Although conditions have improved since April, he says, "it's still the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist. The security situation has put limitations on the ability of journalists to report from different parts of the country."
That's why stories mainly come from relatively safe Baghdad, or from Washington. Of the 134 Iraq-related stories in May that weren't locally produced and that had a dateline (which signals where they were reported), roughly two-thirds came from Baghdad or Washington.
The number of reporters covering Iraq also has declined, limiting the coverage. For example, at the height of the war in 2003, The Associated Press had 32 reporters embedded with military units, 12 roving the country independently and an Associated Press Television News contingent of 80. At the start of 2004, that number was down to five embeds and about two dozen other staff members, continuing to rotate in and out of Iraq, says Jack Stokes, AP spokesman.
The Oregonian last year had two reporters embedded with units in or headed to Iraq, and sent one reporter on Gov. Ted Kulongoski's trip there. The safety of reporters is one factor that has kept the newspaper from sending another reporter to Iraq this year. "I don't think that we've walked up to that decision again because of cost and safety," says Executive Editor Peter Bhatia. "I also don't think any of us anticipated that a year later it being this protracted."
In recent weeks, The Oregonian has broken stories about the re-enlistment policies involving Guard members, disclosed details about the death of a former Salem soldier, profiled families coping with members in Iraq and captured in his own words the moving story of an Oregon soldier who lost his leg.
But none of those enterprise stories have portrayed how Oregon's 719 soldiers are faring and what, if any, progress they are making in Iraq. Bricker knows conditions vary dramatically; her husband tells her of beautiful neighborhoods running smoothly and contrasts that with being under mortar fire at night.
With so much at stake for her and the country, she wants, and deserves, the full picture. "We're not getting the straight story from the media." she says. "It's frustrating."
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