Reporters struggle to get Iraq coverage on the air

Lara Logan, chief foreign correspondent for CBS News, has sparked a great deal of conversation with her recent appearance on The Daily Show.  Logan expressed frustration at not being able to get real information about the war in Iraq through to the American public, (half?) joking that she had to threaten her bureau chief with an RPG to get stories on the air.

The New York Times followed up her appearance with an article chronicling the steep decline in Iraq war coverage:

According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been “massively scaled back this year.” Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The “CBS Evening News” has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC’s “World News” and 74 minutes on “NBC Nightly News.” (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)

Keep an eye on Groundswell this summer, as we will be working to highlight stories that are not getting through the mainstream media by featuring Iraqi bloggers and drawing attention to politicians and pundits who get away with outrageous statements about Iraq.