Editorial: A lesson in what is news

Saturday, events took place in Iraq?

For AFP's Prashant Rao, this was the biggest news in Iraq.

Socks?


Not since the Clinton White House pet of the same name, were socks ever treated as news?


So shoe bombers have progressed to sock bombers?


No, no, no.

Prashant Rao had found a pair of socks he lost in 2009.

That was news to Rao.



But a protest of Nouri on Saturday wasn't news.








That's Dar Addustour.  The found cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr leading the rally -- returning to Iraq for the rally -- to be news.






That's Alsumaria.  They found the huge turnout at the rally to be news.




That's Al Mada.  They also found the huge turnout to be news.


If you read the Iraqi press or The Common Ills, you know about the protest.

But that's all that covered it.

Not The New York Times, not The Washington Post, not CNN, not The Los Angeles Times, not Reuters, not the Associated Press, not The Guardian, not The Independent, not the . . .

You get the idea.

But Prashant thought finding a pair of socks qualified as news.