It's news. And you might have read about it in some of the print outlets. You even saw it on the screen . . . if you watched Al Jazeera Arabic.
But if you turned to one of the US newscasts, you learned that, even when there's video of an attack, broadcast news just isn't interested.
Wednesday a US soldier died in Iraq (Matthew J. England). It wasn't broadcast news for most.
How many deaths does it take to be broadcast news?
Monday we learned that for ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer, five US soldiers dying in Iraq on one day is not enough to qualify as news. The program had time for Weiner-gate, had time for a segment noting Katie Couric had signed with ABC (Couric did not take part in that segment) and for many other things. But Diane and company didn't feel 5 US soldiers dying in Iraq was news.
The Defense Dept. identified the five:
Spc. Emilio J. Campo Jr., 20, of Madelia, Minn.;
Spc. Michael B. Cook Jr., 27, of Middletown, Ohio;
Spc. Christopher B. Fishbeck, 24, of Victoville, Calif.;
Spc. Robert P. Hartwick, 20, of Rockbridge, Ohio; and
Pfc. Michael C. Olivieri, 26, Chicago, Ill.
Their deaths were news to their families. Their deaths were news to their friends. Their deaths were news in their home towns and home states. How strange that professional journalists working for a network news division couldn't see that the deaths were news.
How strange that The NewsHour -- with an hour to fill on 'commerical free' PBS -- couldn't do a report on the five deaths, could only offer it up as a brief headline, not even the first headline of the night, mind you. Buried in the mix, three brief sentences.
Nouri al-Maliki and Ahmed Chalabi are now at odds. That's also not news that's worth broadcasting, apparently.
When Iraq is mentioned, it's with the lie that it's a 'success' and a 'democracy.' Diane Sawyer was happy to swallow that crap when US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was squeezing it out Monday. The same day 5 US soldiers died in Iraq and Diane deemed it not news, she was allowing Gates to lie to the country.
Iraq held elections in March 2010. These were national elections, parliemantary elections. Those elected to the Parliament would vote in a prime minister. The prime minister would establish a Cabinet. This was not a new development or something Iraq hadn't already done before (elections in December 2005, prime minister-desigante in April 2006, prime minister and Cabinet in May 2006).
But it is now one year and three months since Iraq held elections and the country still has no Minister of Interior, Minister of Defense or Minister of National Security. That's not a functional government, let alone a successful one.
As broadcast news drives more and more viewers away by refusing to report the news, they have no one to blame but themselves for their own obsolescence.
