MRC/NB's Noyes Looks at War Coverage Study, NBC Ad on O'Reilly

MRC Director of Research and NewsBusters Senior Editor Rich Noyes appeared Monday night on the "O'Reilly Factor" to discuss his findings in the December 4 Media Reality Check, "Good News = Less News on Iraq War."

Noyes also discussed NBC's reversal of its decision to reject an ad urging viewers to remember the troops over the holidays.

As we previously noted, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly cited the MRC study in his December 6 "Talking Points Memo" segment. Video (2:35) from that "Factor": Real (1.91 MB) and Windows (1.60), plus MP3 audio (1.19 MB).

UPDATE, with video of Noyes on Monday's O'Reilly Factor (4:30): Windows Media (9 MB) or MP3 audio (1.5 MB)

Some key findings from the study (also available here as PDF file) by MRC Research Director Rich Noyes:

....MRC researchers examined all 354 Iraq war stories that aired on the big three evening newscasts from September 1 through November 30, including weekends. That figure includes 234 field reports, plus 120 short headline items read by the news anchor.

Vanishing War.

Back in September, as reporters voiced skepticism of General Petraeus' progress report, the networks aired a total of 178 Iraq stories, or just under two per network per night. About one-fourth of those stories (42) were filed from Iraq itself, with most of the rest originating in Washington.

In October, TV's war news fell by about 40 percent, to 108 stories, with the number of reports filed from Iraq itself falling to just 20, or less than one-fifth of all Iraq stories. By November, the networks aired a mere 68 stories, with only eleven (16%) actually from the war zone itself....