WaPo Blames Lack of Iraq Coverage on 'Financial Strains' Faced by Media, Story Too ‘Complex’ For Them

Well, this is a new one. In an October 11 story, the Washington Post is saying that one of the biggest reasons that the Old Media in the west isn't covering Iraq much these days is because they are facing tough financial times at home. I guess it couldn't be because we are now winning the war and they've lost their favorite doom-and-gloom story line, could it?

The Post even quotes Alissa J. Rubin, The New York Times Iraq bureau chief, that there is "no clear narrative" over there anymore. Once again, this can easily be interpreted to mean that no clear losing narrative has left the media's attention wandering. Even worse Rubin almost seems to admit that they can't handle a "complex" story suddenly.

"It remains important and it remains interesting," said Alissa J. Rubin, the New York Times' acting bureau chief in Baghdad. "But what's in front of us now is almost a static situation. There's not a clear narrative line. The stories are more complex."

And they say that Sarah Palin can’t understand foreign policy!

The Post reports that the number of western journalists in Iraq is at an all time low since the U.S. liberated Iraq from the brutal Saddam Hussein regime. Embedded journalists, for instance, stood at 219 in September of 2007 but are only at 39 today.

The article also discusses the increasingly nuanced and detailed political reality in Iraq. As violence has given way to building the new Iraqi government, the stories have become far more "complex." The easy story of the explosion of the week is gone left only with the sort of stories that take real journalistic ability. Apparently few journalists have the fortitude to pursue this hard work.

But the Post sees another big reason causing this fall in western journalists: Declining revenue.

American newspapers, which have contracted sharply in recent years as readership and advertising revenue have declined, have published fewer Iraq stories this year, and placed a smaller percentage of them on their front pages, than during any other period of the war in Iraq.

But, even after saying this the Post seems to contradict itself.

The number of front-page stories with Iraq datelines published by the New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, which continue to maintain large Baghdad bureaus, has dropped each year since the war began. The three dailies published 858 front-page stories with Iraq datelines in 2003, 379 last year and just 138 during the first nine months of 2008.

Why the stories continue to decline even though these particular news outlets "maintain large Baghdad bureaus" can hardly be blamed on cash flow. After all, what other money need be spent if they already have the "large Baghdad bureaus" in place?

The Post then claims that these stories are declining because "things are happening" elsewhere in the world. I guess nothing was happening elsewhere in the world when Iraq was an explosion-a-minute hellhole, huh?

There is one glaring omission in this Washington Post story. One little word is missing even as the allusion to it fills almost every paragraph of the story. That word is WINNING. We are winning the war in Iraq yet the Post never once uses the word. A reflective reading of this piece cannot help but lead the reader to the conclusion that we are winning, yet the Post just couldn't bring itself to say it.

But, the last paragraph has the most interesting quote of all. It is from a Kurdish lawmaker in Iraq.

"I don't know what's going on in America this year," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker who said he receives far fewer interview requests from Western journalists. "Maybe it's because of the election. I think they are less interested."

I am sure that if things start blowing up again and the story strays from that darned "complex" nature in Iraq back to the chaos the media grew to love, we'll see the doom-and-gloomers of the western media back in Iraq with a vengeance. You can bet that they'd be "interested" then.

(H/T NewBuster reader Prester John)