Salon: War? What war? (Until Najaf, Iraq had faded from the front pages)

[kskiska]

Until the recent flare-up in Najaf, Iraq had faded from the front pages -- despite continued carnage and chaos. Team Bush couldn't be happier.

Despite arriving sooner than expected and catching much of the American press off guard, the June 28 hand-over of sovereignty in Iraq was trumpeted as a momentous event. That night CNN devoted its entire prime-time lineup to analyzing the brief, 15-minute ceremony in Baghdad. Fox News cheered it as "a day that will go down in history." Newspapers the next morning were clogged with reports from Iraq and speculation about what the transfer of political power would mean for the rebuilding of Iraq, as well as for the 140,000 U.S. troops serving there.

The hand-over, though, has done very little to change things for the better in Iraq. In the past six weeks, the country has been gripped in escalating violence, forcing some coalition countries and private contractors to flee for safety. Kidnappings by insurgents have multiplied, as have assassinations, while electricity still remains in short supply. Iraq's national conference -- critical to the eventual implementation of free elections -- has been postponed, and U.S. soldiers continue to die.

"On June 28, my feeling was nothing was going to change because of the hand-over," says Steven Cook, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There were still going to be car bombings and U.S. soldiers being killed, and that's exactly what's happened. Nothing has changed."

But one thing did change: U.S. press coverage of Iraq. The hand-over marked a turning point in the level and intensity of media interest, which sharply decreased, particularly on the 24-hour cable news channels. "Clearly the volume in press coverage has gone way down," says Cook. "'Sleepy' is a good word to describe it. The coverage doesn't compare with anything we'd seen during the previous 12 months from Iraq. The drop-off has been noticeable."

more…
http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/12/iraq_press/index.html

[hansolsen]

1. This nation no longer has a "free press". The highly concentrated,

corporated owned media manages the news for the benefit of their primary constituents -- corporate executives, the Republican Party, and the high and mighty who think they have a "God Given Right" to run the country.

Democracy cannot survive without a free press. We need to get it back. That is job one. Of course, we do have the Internet -- the holy grail of free speech.

[kestrel91316]

2. ......the internet.................

We have the internet as long as they let us have it, or have access to it. And what we don't have on the internet is any f---ing privacy. They can snoop any time they want, no search warrant. Welcome to 1984.