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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (101240)	2/20/2005 4:12:56 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793771

No Information, No Point? By Cori Dauber Something very odd has happened in the last little bit in broadcast coverage of Iraq. While since the elections, the story is definitely getting a decent amount of coverage (save on morning TV), and there is even the barest hint that things may have turned "a" (definitely not "the") corner, the coverage is very much focused on the Iraqis. Even the violence, of course, is primarily targeted against Iraqis, which makes sense given the strategic choices made by the enemies, so this isn't entirely irrational, but that was true before the elections. And of course the efforts of the US military are focused on getting the Iraqi security services to take more of a leading role, so again, not entirely irrational to have the bulk of attention focused on the story as an Iraqi story, but again, that was true before the elections. But there are still attacks against American military forces and still Americans dying. Yet how are those deaths being reported? "X" (whatever number X is in a given 24 hour period) "American Marines" (or soldiers) "were killed today in" (fill in geographic area of the country here.) Rarely is there any more information than that made available. If there is, it will be the type of attack, maybe. IED, suicide bomber, attack on a check point. Never more than that. I had argued previously that in the context of all bad news all the time this kind of reporting was likely to crater support, because the one element necessary to sustain support for combat casualties is evidence that those deaths were meaningful. But you can't believe those deaths had meaning if you aren't even given enough narrative information to assess if there was purpose, meaning, value to particular deaths. Here's an entire print article dedicated to reporting the deaths of Americans out of which the only narrative information to be gleaned is that there was a firefight. reuters.com Is my argument still valid, though, when there is no narrative attached to the reporting of American deaths in the context of improving news? I'm less sure.