It's Not Just the Politicians...

Crafted talk is usually only accused of politicians attempting to sway American audiences to their viewpoint. This stereotype is changing as more pressure is being forced onto media outlets, especially the dying newspaper industry. Bloggers are increasingly accusing the American media of their own version of crafted talk- disengaging from top world issues and then blaming the public for it.

Major news sources claim that the public has increasingly lost interest in Iraq. To an extent, this is true. After five years of war, Americans are not as interested and feel less obligated to hear repetitive stories of heroism and death. However, the media has highly exaggerated this disengagement. According to blogger Eric Boehlert, major news networks covered presidential primaries an astonishing fifteen times more than Iraq. This is dramatically different than statistics stating this ratio should be closer to 4-to-1.

ABC News president David Westin recently said that “[Iraq] is obviously a major strategic initiative for the United States, and how it will go will affect the entire region. That makes it a very important story.” This importance is clearly not being shown in his network’s and others' sparse coverage of the ongoing war. In the week of January 21 through 27, only two percent of coverage focused on Iraq. Although this particular week was one of tragedy due to the demise of teenage heartthrob Heath Ledger, he only stole 4 percent of coverage and thus took little to nothing from Iraq’s.

Networks’ blatant ignorance of Iraq is negatively affecting their coverage of other top issues such as the economy. Americans are following coverage on the stock market and stimulus package closely, both of which are impacted by the war in Iraq. It is clear to the public that Iraq is impacting the declining economy, with seven of ten Americans acknowledging its negative effects. If this is so clear to the public, then why is the media not covering Iraq? Perhaps it is time for Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager James Carville to step in and cry out to the media his infamous “It’s the economy, stupid,” which unquestionably includes Iraq.

The news outlets' continual sidestepping of the issues in Iraq and their claim that loss of interest is its cause are not holding up. These statistics suggest that the public is not done with Iraq and deserves more reporting on it. Even if the public wished to read and hear little about it, the media has a responsibility to inform. Some of the basic tenets of journalism are that its first loyalty is to citizens and that it must provide a forum for discussion of major issues.[1] If the media continues to disregard Iraq, then it is doing a great disservice to Americans by closing an influential area of discussion and creating ignorance. Americans now need to live up to their responsibility of asking why the media is engaging in crafted talk and disengaging from top American issues.

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[1] Kovach, Bill and Tom Rosenthal. The Elements of Journalism. New York: Random House, 2007.