Librul Media Watch
One of the favored themes of wingnut blogs is that the dreaded MSM either ignores good news about Iraq or buries it deeply in the back pages. Here’s just one example from Ace o’ Spades HQ:
Surge: Troop Deaths Down Two Thirds Since Last Year, Down 50% Since Last Month
Taking a page from the Washington Post, I’ll bury this on Page A14.
By this logic, if the those leftist Commies at our big newspapers followed this behavior, they would feature on the front page any bad news about Iraq.
Today there is a test case, as 2007 became the deadliest year for US military fatalities in Iraq. Let’s see how the NYTimes reported it.
The ‘wingnut expectation’ would be that they featured it on the front page and ignored the fact that in recent months casualties have trended sharply downward.
In the dead-tree edition, this story was on page A12. On the NYTimes website, it is also not on the main page (as I write this; the site is dynamic). Here are the first five paragraphs:
Six American soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in Iraq on Monday, the military said Tuesday, taking the number of deaths this year to 852. The toll makes 2007 the deadliest year of the war for United States troops.
Military officials announced the discovery of a mass grave holding 22 bodies in a rural area north of Falluja. They also said that nine Iranians being held in Iraq would soon be released, including two of the five who were detained during a January raid of a consulate office in Erbil.
Five of the American soldiers died in two roadside bomb attacks on Monday near Kirkuk, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of the communications division of the Multinational Force-Iraq, the formal name for the United States-led forces.
A sixth soldier died Monday during combat operations in Anbar Province, according to a military statement.
The deaths occurred only a few days after the military announced a steep drop in the rate of American deaths this year. In October, 38 American service members died in Iraq, the lowest monthly tally since March 2006, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (icasualties.org), an independent Web site that tracks military deaths. November’s total, if the current pace continues, would be higher, but still below the war’s average of 69 American military deaths per month.
1st paragraph - a restatement of the main point, … fair enough.
2nd paragraph - big, related news about Iraqi casualties, … okay.
3rd & 4th paragraphs - some details about the most recent 6 casualties, … seems reasonable to me.
5th paragraph - A rather lengthy, and documented, comment about recent trends, putting the headline in context. … no cause for complaint.
The rest of the article devolved into a report about whether or not Iran has been behind weapons, etc. etc.
Summary: I find the NY Times innocent of dreaded Librul media bias in this instance. Here it is, bad news from Iraq, and those evil Commies “buried” it on page A12 and even provided the context of more recent positive trends.
A nation of whiners?
YouTube Hate Speech
The Colbert Blackout
Flogjam #1
Always look on the bright side