Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: New York Times

Getting a story on the evening news isn’t easy for any correspondent. And for reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is especially hard, according to Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News. So she has devised a solution when she is talking to the network.

“Generally what I say is, ‘I’m holding the armor-piercing R.P.G.,’ ” she said last week in an appearance on “The Daily Show,” referring to the initials for rocket-propelled grenade. “ ‘It’s aimed at the bureau chief, and if you don’t put my story on the air, I’m going to pull the trigger.’ ”

Ms. Logan let a sly just-kidding smile sneak through as she spoke, but her point was serious. Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever.

“If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts,” Ms. Logan said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23loga...

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For the people in Iraq, the war is full time. A woman wept as the body of a relative was borne to burial in Najaf.

[saigon68]

1. Apparently the War is Over

</sarcasm>

Too bad the DINOS in Congress keep throwing Billions at it

http://iframe.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

[mopinko]

2. ya think?

i am shuddering, thinking of the people to whom this would be news.

[rainbow4321]

3. "A decline in the relative amount of violence is taking the urgency out”

Quote from the OP article. So, basically, not enough dead and dying people for the networks to be interested?? Or too many dying/dead people and the chimp regime has told the network execs NOT to be interested.

Another part:

Paul Friedman, a senior vice president at CBS News, said the news division does not get reports from Iraq on television “with enough frequency to justify keeping a very, very large bureau in Baghdad.” He said CBS correspondents can “get in there very quickly when a story merits it.”
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And what exactly "merits it"? A call from the WH to say "go and cover this..."?

[midnight]

4. We have covered these people in a blanket of pain.

[gratuitous]

5. Lack of information leads to an explosion of prevarication

Without any actual reporting from the war zones, Republicans and their mouthpieces at Fox can trumpet the "news" that we're "winning." After all, have you seen any news reports to the contrary? And a lot of people, wanting desperately to believe that it's all over but the shouting in Iraq and Afghanistan (for various reasons), will believe the lie and repeat it to their friends.

The great stalwarts and bulwarks of democracy at the Times, the Post and the major non-Fox news outlets are all in for this latest scheme. I really don't know why, except to speculate that it's because it makes the general election a bit more of a horse race, and calling it for Obama in June means that they have a whole lot of nothin' on their hands. Much more fun to go around making deathless pronouncements about how the "good news" out of Iraq and Afghanistan is such a boost to the McCain campaign. Oh, and it makes the dirty fucking hippies, who have been so right for so long, look wrong. And that makes it all worth it.

[liberal N proud]

6. Can't have talk of an illegal war in an election year

Not one that was started by the republicons.

[LynnTheDem]

7. That's what happens when a nation is #53 in the world for freedom of the press.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[Lasher]

8. Just as Republicans planned.

They said early on that they couldn't win this election if they couldn't change the subject. No surprise their media lapdogs have fallen into line.