Monthly Media Coverage of Iraq From July 7 to August 3, 2008

Iraq continues to fade from the headlines of America’s media. The only time the war seems to get much coverage across the media spectrum is when it is brought up by one of the candidates for the president of the United States. The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s (PEJ) weekly media watch shows that Iraq only broke the top 10 stories in the United States one week, from July 14-20. That week the conflict was the number 10 story in America’s newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and internet coverage. Two factors led to the increased coverage, one 13% of the campaign stories that week were about Obama’s position on Iraq, and two, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a German magazine that he supported Obama’s position of a withdrawal of American forces. Even then, Iraq was only 2% of the press’ stories. Newspapers continue to have the most coverage of the war, but in the other media outlets it is quickly disappearing.

SOURCES

Project for Excellence in Journalism, “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index: July 7-13, 2008: Gaffes Drove The Campaign Narrative Last Week,” 7/11/08
- “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index: July 14-20, 2008: War Takes Center Stage as Obama (and Media) Moves Overseas,” 7/21/08
- “PEJ Campaign Coverage Index: Amid Charges of Bias, the Media Swarm on Obama Overseas: July 21-27, 2008,” 7/30/08
Project for Excellence in Journalism, “Extra! Extra! McCain Makes as Much News as Obama: July 28-August 3, 2008,” 8/5/08