Monday, March 24, 2008
JUST ASK THE EDITORS
The NYT attempts to work out why coverage of the war has declined. After exploring a range of possible reasons - reduced public interest, danger to reporters, shrinking newsroom budgets, lack of a compelling narrative, cloying Georgio Moroder soundtrack - this longshot receives passing mention:
The drop accelerated with a sharp decline in violence in Iraq that began at the end of last summer. The last six months have been safer for American troops than any comparable period since the war began ...
They might be on to something.
(Via Alan R.M. Jones)
UPDATE. Bad news from Iraq is suddenly Time’s top online story:
Death had been taking something of a holiday in Iraq, but it seemed to come back from vacation with a vengeance on Easter, with ominous implications for American strategy. Sunday dawned in Baghdad’s Green Zone with a barrage of mortars courtesy of Shi’ite militiamen. Several more mortars poured in throughout the day. Meanwhile, attacks across Iraq on Sunday killed dozens of people, including four American soldiers in a deadly roadside bombing in southern Baghdad. That last incident raised the number of U.S. military fatalities in Iraq to 4,000. While an American military spokesman pointed out that “no casualty is more or less significant than another,” the timing of the ramped-up violence is telling.
The timing of many things is telling. As is the “ramping up”.