Remember the war in Iraq?Read the whole thing here.The question isn't entirely facetious. The war has nearly vanished from TV screens over the past few months, replaced by stories about the fascinating presidential campaign and faltering economy.
Yet Americans continue to fight and die there, five years after the war started in March 200
...Statistics clearly illustrate the diminished attention. For the first 10 weeks of the year, the war accounted for 3 percent of television, newspaper and Internet stories in the Project for Excellence in Journalism's survey of news coverage. During the same period in 2007, Iraq filled 23 percent of the news hole.
The difference is even more stark on cable news networks: 24 percent of the time spent on Iraq last year, just 1 percent this year.
To clarify: the title is excerpted from Act 1 of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. The full quote goes: "Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; So ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes." It's a warning against spending too much of your life in scholarly pursuits.
Day By Day
Sunday, March 16, 2008
War? What War?
The Iraq war has faded into the deep background as far as the broadcast media are concerned. Once again the American journalistic community is failing to keep the public informed on important issues.