By Tiffany Ayuda
The United States continues to be in an especially difficult position in Iraq, yet media coverage of the war seems to be waning. There isn’t a day when news coverage of the Iraq war isn’t in our RSS feeds, the Associated Press news wires and our daily e-mail news subscriptions, but a trend shows that newspapers, magazines and news shows are reporting less and less of the war, or are no longer placing Iraq stories above the fold, but in the back pages of the newspaper. However, researchers say that while media attention of the war has slightly fallen, the percentage of Americans following the events of the war since 2003 also has dramatically decreased. Is the media at fault for not providing enough coverage? According to this week’s news coverage index from the Project for Excellence in Journalism (journalism.org), the top story covered was the 2008 presidential campaign, taking 32 percent of the news hole followed by the U.S. Economy which took nine percent of the newshole. The Iraq war coverage was five percent, and the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death trailing with three percent (PEJ, April 2008).
While some may argue that it’s the media’s and journalists’ responsibility to report what the public not only NEEDS, it also needs to report what the public wants to know. It’s a journalist’s obligation to report on the public’s interest. Five elements go into what makes a story newsworthy: timeliness, proximity, prominence, unusualness and, more importantly, human interest. It’s who, what, when and, most of all, why. Is a story about Iraq more important than what is going on with the economy? Is it more important than job losses or the escalating prices on gas? In the end, I’d bet that most Americans would care more about their jobs and not what Nuri Kamal al-Maliki (the prime minister of Iraq) is doing. Fueled by the downturn in the housing market, concern for the U.S. economy rose rapidly, making it the top problem of the country.
That being said, the Iraq war doesn’t quite meet all the elements of newsworthiness every day. On a national level, the Iraq war is a very important issue that every American should constantly be aware of, but there are other issues out there that need to be addressed and deserve the same attention as the war. And it’s not Britney Spears’ misadventures or the pregnant man in Oregon. To the average American, about one story a day in Iraq is sufficient, but this isn’t the case. The effects of the war have affected different aspects of Iraqi and American life. And covering stories about the war isn’t easy. In order to make a news story unique, the reporter needs to find different outlets of reporting and write stories that will provide a greater impact. Americans may know Iraq’s current death toll, but they may not know all about the nine different, fighting Shiite militias killing each other for political power, or the Iraqi women and children of the insurgency. Covering the Iraq war is extremely difficult considering how dangerous reporting in Iraq is; in addition, finding the appropriate sources for the story is especially challenging under the circumstances. In some areas, American journalists are not able to carry notebooks, cameras or anything that identifies them as working for the western media. According to a Project for Excellence in Journalism annual report, 57 percent of journalists said that at least one member of their Iraqi reporter staff was killed or kidnapped in the last year.
People want to know about what’s going in the world, but they also want to know what’s going on in their communities. For example, the rise in unemployment and applications for welfare and food stamps are just as imperative as the men and women dying in Iraq. What directly impacts people now will interest them more than something that has become an ongoing problem. Moreover, journalism is a business. As journalists, we put our opinions and feelings aside and report because that’s our job. However, journalists do need to make a living. The Audit Bureau Circulations report says that in 2007, daily newspaper circulation fell 2.5 percent. Moreover, the number of viewers of nightly newscasts dropped 4.9 percent, and for the past 25 years; news shows have been losing at least one million viewers a year, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Like any other industry, there are media corporations and newspapers that care more about the ratings and the money, and at the same time, there are journalists out there who risk their lives every day to report on wars, ethnic tension, drug and human trafficking, crime and terrorism. With all these factors to consider, the media can’t be held completely accountable for less coverage of the Iraq war. Journalists should have strong news judgment, but they also need to write what’s important, and what needs to be important to you.
Tiffany Ayuda is a senior print journalism student. You may e-mail her at [email protected].
