PEJ Study: War Coverage Down, Campaign Reporting Up

By Joe Strupp (E&P, 2007-08-20)

NEW YORK Coverage of events related to the Iraq War decreased during the second quarter of 2007, but remained the top news issue, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which noted 15% of stories across print, broadcast and online dealt with Iraq-related issues.

That is down from 22% during the first quarter of the year. As in the first quarter, the Fox News Channel devoted roughly half as much coverage to the war (8%) than its rivals, CNN (18%) and MSNBC (15%).

Rising during the same three-months was reporting on the 2008 presidential campaign, which came in second with 9%. The Virginia Tech massacre, meanwhile, brought the most coverage in a single week, with just more than half of all reporting during that week in April on the shooting spree that left 33 dead.

The rest of the story: Editor & Publisher

CIA and FBI Computers Used for Wikipedia Edits

People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program.

The changes may violate Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said on Thursday.

The rest of the story: PC Magazine

USA Today's Iraq Progress (Fair.Org)

Military claims appear without scrutiny

Government efforts to portray progress in the Iraq War were boosted by USA Today's August 13 front page story, "Major attacks decline in Iraq."

The paper's report relied entirely on current and former military officials, with the key claim being that "large al-Qaeda-style attacks in Iraq have declined nearly 50% since the United States started increasing troop levels in Iraq about six months ago." The paper added that such attacks "have dropped to about 70 in July from a high during the past year of about 130 in March, according to the Multi-National Force-Iraq."

This claim deserved some serious scrutiny, but USA Today unfortunately provided none. ...

Counts of civilian deaths in Iraq vary: the Associated Press reported (Christian Science Monitor, 8/3/07) at least 2,024 violent deaths in July (an increase of 23 percent from June), while the Iraqi government reported a lower total (1,652) that was nonetheless a significant increase from the previous month (Agence France Presse, 8/1/07)

Given that such data is readily available, USA Today should have—at the very least—acknowledged that the military claims could be questioned. In contrast with USA Today's approach, McClatchy Newspapers (8/15/07) covered similar Pentagon claims regarding violence in Baghdad. But instead of merely repeating the official claims, McClatchy's Leila Fadel raised questions: "U.S. officials say the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capital is down 50 percent. But U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don't support the claim."

The rest of the story: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Army Reports Brass, Not Bloggers, Breach Security (Wired)

For years, the military has been warning that soldiers' blogs could pose a security threat by leaking sensitive wartime information. But a series of online audits, conducted by the Army, suggests that official Defense Department websites post material far more potentially harmful than anything found on a individual's blog. The rest of the story: Wired

Backspin for War: The Convenience of Denial

The man who ran CNN's news operation during the invasion of Iraq is now doing damage control in response to a new documentary's evidence that he kowtowed to the Pentagon on behalf of the cable network. His current denial says a lot about how "liberal media" outlets remain deeply embedded in the mindsets of pro-military conformity. The rest of the story: Media Channel

Al Jazeera Struggles to Be Seen (Los Angeles Times)

Few U.S. cable services are willing to carry the Arabic channel's English-language offspring. But it's popular online at YouTube.

Ignored or shunned by almost every cable TV provider in the U.S., the Al Jazeera English news channel has turned to the Internet to reach American viewers. Since April, when Al Jazeera struck a distribution deal with YouTube, the popular video site owned by Google Inc., the channel has received 2 million hits and on one day last month was ranked first, ahead of Paris Hilton and other staple fare. Only two cable providers, Buckeye Cable System, which reaches 147,000 homes in northern Ohio, and a small municipal service in Burlington, Vt., that is piped to just 1,000 homes, have so far agreed to offer it to their subscribers. The rest of the story: The Los Angeles Times

Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes: Forward Into Battle (Newsweek)

With The Wall Street Journal and a new business network, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News chief Roger Ailes plan their next move: all-out war.

The war for the future of journalism is just beginning. When combined with News Corp. properties like Fox News and the soon-to-be-launched Fox Business Network, Murdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal will create a juggernaut whose influence ranges far beyond the world of financial news and information. With plans to expand the Journal's political and international coverage, Murdoch is itching for a fight with the nation's presumed newspaper of record, The New York Times.
The rest of the story: Newsweek
Murdoch: "I won't meddle any more than Arthur Sulzberger does": E&P
Norm Pearlstine says Murdoch should encourage the Journal to cover News Corp. "aggressively": TVNewser
WSJ editor Paul Steiger "conflicted but hopeful" about deal: E&P
Are stand-alone news brands doomed?: AdAge
Murdoch gives in, so-to-speak: David Carr (New York Times)
Get ready for the Old Australian Man vs. The Old Gray Lady: Mediaworks