The Daily Show vs. Network News

The state of our media in the US is perilous for our democracy and this story, "Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner", from the New York Times illustrates it most clearly. Via KerryVision at noon on 6-23-2008, the counters reflected the US's commitment to Iraq. But you'd never know it by the coverage in our television media.

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.)

CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.

The Times reporter opens his article with a quote from Lara Logan's appearance on The Daily Show. You can tell that her appearance was probably the inspiration for the article. She did not hold back.

Almost halfway done with 2008 and they've only shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage. As Lara points out,

More soldiers died in Afghanistan last month than in Iraq. Who's paying attention to that? 33,000 - highest troop level since the war began - seven years after we defeated the Taliban.

Her whole appearance is riveting -- do watch it.