NYT:At 2,000(not 1,000) Iraq's Military Deaths Got Media's Full Attention

[DeepModem Mom]

At 2,000, Iraq's Military Deaths Got the Media's Full Attention
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: October 31, 2005


....Other papers, too, that had dutifully acknowledged the first 1,000 dead seemed to give greater emotional weight to the loss of the second 1,000. Single columns gave way to feature layouts. Roll calls of names were supplemented with pictures, ages and hometowns. Elaborate graphics and maps charted the who, when, where and how. Writers wrestled with the why....

***

Television - where a new survey found that coverage of the war has diminished - also seemed to give fuller expression last week to the 2,000 mark than it had to the 1,000.

How to explain the difference? Highlighting deaths during war can be perceived as a political statement, as Lincoln learned when he was accused of playing on people's emotions with the Gettysburg Address. Were editors last week trying to compensate for having ignored Iraq lately? Was it a reaction to the growing scale of casualties, though the numbers are still small by the standards of other wars? Or was it implicit criticism of the war itself?...

***

At the 1,000 mark, many still saw the war as having a clear purpose and goal. Now polls show that a majority of Americans think it was wrong to invade Iraq in the first place and do not see a good way out....

***

Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University....said, the press was somewhat restrained. "A lot of journalists were very worried that if they were critical, they would be accused of something tantamount to treason, as 'Nightline' had been..."....That restraint may have been intensified because the 1,000th death came during an election season....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/business/31deaths.html

[Nite Owl]

1. The 1000 mark also occured before

the election and they wouldn't want to have been accused of being 'partisan' now would they? All the things that were not reported were things that could have made their little dimson lose.

[still_one]

2. it will go much higher unless the people in the country vote them out

[LynnTheDem]

3. majority of Americans think it was wrong to invade Iraq in the first place

As the majority of the entire world said it was wrong BEFORE a single person died for bush's steaming pile of lies, let's repeat that...

"a majority of Americans think it was wrong to invade Iraq in the first place"

[ninkasi]

4. They got it wrong...

"A lot of journalists were very worried that if they were critical, they would be accused of something tantamount to treason, as 'Nightline' had been..."

The ones who committed treason are the ones who lied us into this war. Speaking out against an illegal invasion of another country, and getting over 2000 of our own, and probably more than 100,000 Iraqis killed, is a war crime and brings shame to our country. Speaking out against this evil was not then, and is not now, treason.

In a few years, when the wounded in this war, the ones who sacrificed limbs, and eyesight, and mobility, when they are struggling to survive and cope with their pain, will anybody be their champion? Will we remember that they served their country, but that it was the corrupt men who started this war who are to blame.

Regardless of the political outcome, in a few years, most of the Bush cronies, or their families, will still be wealthy, and the wounded will still be scrounging for medical care and decent benefits. Who will care then, besides us? Who will be the traitor then?

[nolabels]

5. US admits it has counted 26,000 Iraqi dead

(notice they are careful not to state the US military murdered any x(, they blame everything on the indigenous countrymen they dehuminize and marginalize by tagging them with the word 'insurgent(s)' )

US admits it has counted 26,000 Iraqi dead
By Daniel Howden and David Usborne in New York
Published: 31 October 2005

The Pentagon has admitted for the first time that it is keeping track of civilian casualties in Iraq. The figures, slipped into a bar graph in a lengthy report to the US congress this month, show that the daily number of Iraqi casualties has more than doubled in the past 18 months.

The report says that nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents, with an estimated 26 casualties a day between January and March of last year, rising to 64 a day in the run up to the referendum on the new constitution.

This contradicts the Pentagon's assertion that the security situation in Iraq is improving - and that appearances to the contrary reflect the media's focus on bombings in and around Baghdad.

Previously, the US military has insisted it kept records of the casualties among only its own personnel, and avoided discussion about civilian tolls. It also refuses to release information on the number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded by US forces.

Washington and London have regularly doubted independent estimates of the number of Iraqis killed since the 2003 invasion.


(snip)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article323498.ece

[rodeodance]

6. I was encouraged by the coverage--mostly by the newspapers.