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06.02.2008 3:35 pm

Where’s the war news?

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A retired Globe-Democrat staffer called to criticize our day-in and day-out reporting on the war in Iraq. Not enough, not prominent enough, she said.

Five years into the war, is an 8-inch story  in the middle of Page A5 enough? (”Iraqis push for sovereignty in security pact with U.S.”) At the onset of the war, war news dominated the front page. Did so for months.  The past couple years, war news is more likely to be inside the main news section than on the front page.

The war is important, she said. More important than “Violence foils Haiti tourism goals,” which dominated today’s Page A5. More important than “Studio fire destroys classic movie sets,” which dominated Page A2.

 I can’t argue that the war isn’t “more important” than those stories. But in terms of news and interest, are those developments in Iraq worth greater display? Obviously, our news editors and page designers last night thought not.

The retired Globe-Democrat staffer said politics skews our judgment. We bury the war, she charged, because we’re liberal Democrats. Democrat or Republican, incremental news is incremental news.

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9 comments

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Gee, I tend to agree with “her”. However, perhaps she has forgotten that the Iraq War may have moved, not because the P-D is not reporting on it, but because it is baseball season.

Although I was surprised at today’s front page (Monday June 2) that the Card’s win was not above the fold as usual.

— RHarnack
9:22 pm June 2nd, 2008

The news out of Iraq is anything but incremental and there are important developments going on nearly everyday. The only difference is the fact the war has made a stunning turnaround in the past year and the shamefully biased media refuses to acknowledge it.

If PD readers want to know what’s really going on in Iraq and the war on terror, they may have to adopt the strategy used by Westerners in Asia during the WWII. Japanese newspapers and radio always proclaimed the latest stunning victory over Allied forces. The trick to gauging the true course of the war was watching how those “victories” kept getting closer and closer to the Japanese islands.

— Go_Fish
10:52 am June 3rd, 2008

Thanks to the GD staffer for taking it to the PD. My sentiments exactly.
I would call, but the news editors won’t talk to me because they hate hearing the truth about their left-wing liberal bias. Here is a story you would never see in the front or editorial pages of the PD:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/31/AR2008053101927.html

— A CENTRIST
5:19 pm June 3rd, 2008

The left-wing media puts bad Iraq news on the front page and editorial page, but buries anything positive it may carry buried in the back. Heaven forbid we should win and McCain would look good. And the economy is the other subject. Keep hammering the economy until November with bad econ news on the front of the Business section and good econ news on the back of the econ section. Certainly a bad ecomonomy will help their candidate Obama. Imagine that, a party that wants America to lose in Iraq and go into a Depression just to win an election. How sad.

— A CENTRIST
8:34 pm June 3rd, 2008

I would like to post some news of our progress as a military transition team in Iraq. Our mission is to aid the Iraqi Army in its efforts to sustatin itself, while demonstrating a positive influence for the citizens of Iraq. If anyone has some advice as to where I could post in a non-blog forum I will post pictures and news. Thanks
SSG Gregory Murrell

gregory.a.murrell@us.army.mil

— Greg Murrell
9:33 pm June 3rd, 2008

Glory Be….lets start small, and later reach the War in Iraq. I have sent e-mails and appealed in the fourums in here numberous times that the PD just write one story.

Hoq many citizens in Nissouri who got a concealed carry permit abused it any way? I would guess that the answer is none..it haz been in effect something like 2 years.Why won’t they publish the figures. The figures would not be to their liking. Liberal Media will not publish articles that show Bush was right when he sent more troops…in the Surge Campaign. That worked.

Hence the page 5 articles on the war that their ex-staffer complained about.

— johnh
10:15 am June 4th, 2008

One last thing about the lamented, disappeared, dead, failed Globe-Democrat. In the best of the “conservative capitalist tradition” it could not compete in the marketplace, hence its’ demise. They should be celebrating for having remained true to their convictions.

— RHarnack
9:37 pm June 4th, 2008

I agree, it isn’t front page stuff, and your choice was not politically motivated.

I would be considered conservative and an advocate for democracy and peace in Iraq.

— Scott K.
3:21 pm June 5th, 2008

there’s a war going on?? never would have known it based on the media coverage. i don’t read the hard copy paper, just the online one. And let me tell you, the online version has gone from sparce to complete crap recently. the headlines include chat sessions, the best views of St. Louis and a baseball fight. fan freakin-tastic. its like a high school journalism class let loose on the internet. why not cover something a little more interesting…such as an article on the awarding of the Medal of Honor posthumously to forever 19-year-old Ross McGinnis, a private who threw himself on a grenade to save his comrades.

— heather
11:31 am June 6th, 2008