Talk:Media coverage of the Iraq War

General discussion
What does "and Geraldo Rivera was sent from Afghanistan after drawing a crude map in the sand, possibly revealing troop movements on air." mean? I thought he was in Iraq! Tompagenet 00:04 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)


 * Don't know why Iraq was changed to Afghanistan.. I changed it back. Question: Was any embedded journalist killed by enemy fire? Towards the end of the war, I remember hearing that there hadn't been any - but I can't remember if any were killed after that.


 * the casualties of journalists being surprisingly low is really a personal position.


 * the death of a reporter after the war has little to do here


 * I see not why American news would be "reported" when non-us news "claim". In particular, when there are pictures supporting these reports.


 * Well, that&#8217;s why I was asking if ANY embedded journalist was killed. I'm thinking that none were- but I wanted to verify that before I said it. That is why I said "surprisingly low".


 * But low means little. Some think it is high as soon as there is one death...

True. I intended to change it once I had verification of the question I posted above... I think it was actually zero casualties among embedded journalists which would be surprisingly low by anyone’s standards.


 * Sorry to butt in, but why is "zero casualties among embedded journalists which would be surprisingly low"? While zero of anything is low, they were the most protected people in Iraq. It was everybody but the invading forces who were in danger, and particular the civilians. As example. A total of 124 journalists died in the period 2003 to September 2007, of which 102 were Iraqi citizens. In other words, Iraq was dangerous for Iraqis, not so much for everybody else.


 * ok


 * death after the war.. who? The war's still going on. There&#8217;s a firefight in Baghdad *right now*.


 * ok. But, why does it have to be there ? Why would the blood clog be necessary related to war ?

Because listing him with casualties implies that he was a casualty of combat. He wasn't. Someone else listed him and conveniently left out how and why he died.


 * fair


 * Because that claim is is unverified and a bit silly. I haven't seen anyone else report the same thing. The fall of the statue was reported by everyone - even Arab TV. It happened exactly the way it was seen live on television. What the French media is claiming has not been supported by anyone else. Even Al-Jazeera hasn't supported that to my knowledge.


 * So the best way to do is to say what is reported on French TV is necessarily wrong and silly. Of course. The fact the place was empty is not silly, there are some pictures, and I put some links to support this. It was also supported by British.

No, not necessarily. But in this case, yes, it is silly. I watched it happen. Live. There was no way this was staged.. It took all morning to knock that statue down.. if it was staged they would have done it within minutes. If it was staged - there probably would have been larger crowds. If it was staged there would have been more "PR" shots of Iraqis waving US flags and stuff like that. Until its supported by a larger number of media organizations or until a memo is found telling US troops "Hey, lets stage a media event around the statue in Baghdad" or until an out of work Iraqi actor comes forward and says I was paid $5 to tear the sta


 * I think you are misconsidering propaganda cleverness :-) Some says too much info kills info. But, right, let's keep claim. French media showed pictures of the near-empty place, and two pictures are showing the same guy in two different places at 3 days intervals. One of this place being the statue place. I sure hope for him he received more than 5 bucks *if* it was really him both times, and *if* it was not just one of these rare and surprising events which make the salt of life.


 * often questioning and refusing to believe reports coming from Coalition sources while reporting Iraqi claims of civilian casualties without independent verification. need sources for "often"


 * Just watch non-US TV. It&#8217;s all over non-US TV - especially Arab TV.


 * If it is all over TV, I am sure it is also all over the net. So, please provide a link.

Other wiki contributors have already done that for me. Just look at some of the other Iraq war articles.


 * please which articles ?

Why remove the reason the British navy removed the BBC from their ship? Why remove that David Bloom died of a blood clot?


 * please explain to me where the interest of the death of Mr. Bloom is in this article

I don't know. I didn't add him. I only added why and how he died. See above.


 * Saying there were high casualties among journalists is a POV. There were only a few.. its surprising there weren't more.


 * It was low only if you don't include Iraqi journalist casualties. "Fatalities in Iraq far surpass any other documented war-time death toll for the press. CPJ, founded in 1981, recorded the deaths of 58 journalists during the Algerian civil war from 1993 through 1996, another 54 fatalities in the undeclared civil conflict in Colombia, which began in 1986; and 36 deaths in the conflict in the Balkans from 1991 to 1995."


 * agreed, both sentences are POV

Agreed.

--

Removed anchor quotes: '' For example:

Anchor Neal Cavuto said of those "who opposed the liberation of Iraq": "You were sickening then, you are sickening now." Anchor John Gibson said he hoped "the dopey old U.N." would not be responsible for Iraq's reconstruction A correspondent called anti-war protestors "the great unwashed" Other networks had strongly pro-war commentators, including MSNBC. For example:

"They are absolutely committing sedition, or treason." "These leftist stooges for anti-American causes are always given a free pass. Isn't it time to make them stand up and be counted for their views?" --exchange between commentator Michael Savage and Joe Scarborough on Savage's MSNBC talk show ''

The reason: All of these networks have strongly pro-war and strongly anti-war commentators and anchors. Why pick out the quotes of a few for this article? I can name as many people on some of these networks that were very clearly against the war as I can people that were for it.


 * If you can find quotations from strongly anti-war commentators and anchors, then I'll believe the claim. --The Cunctator


 * Not sure how relevant this is, but I think Fox literally did some flag waving at one point http://www.jsonline.com/enter/tvradio/apr03/131964.asp. --erzengel 1540 UTC - 23 Apr 2003


 * I don't deny that Fox in particular leans to the right and was certainly "patriotic" in their coverage - but where do we draw the line with these quotes? There are dozens of liberal commentators and anchors on that channel and MSNBC that were against the war. Why include quotes from either? Another point is, there were certain media outlets that were decidedly against the war - do we include a bunch of quotes from them too? Where does it end? Pretty soon this page is gonna be filled with quotes from journalists.


 * re: the statement "don't delete content just because you don't like it" - you've been doing that to me for weeks. You don't own this article any more than I do.. if you can do it to me, I can do it to you.


 * A few other things. Iraqi citizens attempted to topple the statue themselves for hours before requesting help from a US tank. Stop deleting that. The deaths of the journalists was accidental unless you can prove that the US targeted journalists. Stop deleting that. Tanks were clearly visible in the images of the statue - why point out that they weren't? Stop deleting my addition at the top about viewers being able to watch major events in the war.. its true, and its historic. This is the only war that has ever happened where home viewers were able to see this sort of thing. Your views of Fox are opinion, stop deleting my attempt to NPOV it (meaning make it from a neutral point of view). The comments about the Iraqi citizens being seen in multiple locations is a claim - it has not been verified - besides the fact that it is completely meaningless.


 * The entry never said that the U.S. fire was intentional; you kept on changing "death by U.S. fire" to "death possibly by U.S. fire". That's entirely different. I've been deleting suppositions that may or may not be true. For example, we *know* that a U.S. tank pulled down the statue, because we have the video of it. It was an action. Do we *know* that Iraqis *tried* to pull it down then asked the U.S. for help? It's a lot harder to know what people *try* to do. Only actual events are confirmable, not attempts. For example, we *know* the U.S. has not found WMD. We don't know *why*. We know what the military has claimed, but those claims should be taken with a grain of salt and have little historical significance. Only the finding or not of WMD will matter.
 * If you dislike my characterization of the Fox News quotes, then you shouldn't delete the quotes. Leave them in and let the reader decide. --The Cunctator 03:03 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * Originally, I believe it read that the "U.S. fired on journalists". I recently changed the "death by U.S. fire" to "accidental death by U.S. fire" and that was deleted as well - not by you, but by the other person that keeps deleting everything I add. The reason I added "possibly by U.S. fire" was because the Guardian did a story a week or so ago interviewing some of the reporters that were in or near that building - some of them said that they did not think it was a U.S. tank because the U.S. tank would have had to shoot around a corner to hit the spot that was hit.


 * We do *know* that Iraqis *tried* to pull the statue down first... I watched it live. The Iraqis were beating on the statue with a sledge hammer and trying to pull it down with a rope hours before the U.S. tank came in and did it for them. I saw live interviews with Marines watching the Iraqis do this.. they were seated off to the side watching them knocking holes in the base of the statue.


 * re: media quotes - its silly. There are millions of newspapers, magazines and networks that reported on the war. Some were pro-war, some were anti-war, some were anti-US, or pro-US, some were focused on what celebrities say about the war, some were focused on what former military people say about the war.. why single out a handful of quotes to include in the article? You can find pro-war quotes from any newspaper or any network. You can find anti-war quotes from any newspaper or any network. If we start adding quotes the page is gonna be huge. Where do we stop? Someone will add what Barbara Streisand said.. someone else will add what Rush Limbaugh said.. someone will add what the Dixie Chicks said, etc, etc, etc... if it was possible to include a few quotes and represent all media coverage of the war I'd be fine with it, but as it is we're only representing one little tiny portion of two little networks. You're using these quotes to suggest that everyone at MSNBC was for the war? What about Donahue? What about the endless coverage of anti-war protests, the anti-war celebrities, etc.?


 * There are not millions of networks that reported on the war. There are about 5. Fox News was the most popular cable network. MSNBC fired Donahue (remember?) and replaced him with the incendiary right-winger (oops, I mean "controversially conservative") Michael Savage. Find the anti-war quotes by the employees of these (or any of the) networks, and I'll start respecting your claims. The anti-war celebrities are not members of the press, as Fox anchors and correspondents are.--The Cunctator 17:31 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * I'm not real familiar with contributing to Wiki discussions, so I hope I'm doing this correctly. One serious omission from this article is the effort of John Walcott and McClatchy Newspaper's Washington Bureau in their coverage of the pre-war intelligence BEFORE the invasion. Their work undermines the claims that nobody knew the truth about Iraq. It clearly shows that the Bush administration had an agenda they were not discussing. It also shows a serious defect in the media that the country's news agencies will pick up the lead of a few major outlets and completely ignore more objective coverage. If this article is to be rewritten it should definitely include the McClatchy coverage. A URL for more info: http://discuss.epluribusmedia.net/node/2179  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sexmoron (talk • contribs) 21:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Donahue was still around early on, I remember watching his show (or him on another show) talking about the war. I (unlike you apprently) do not take notes when I'm watching the news and I do not have easy access to a website full of anti-Iraq-war quotes from journalists (as far as I know) - otherwise I'd provide you with a list. I'll look around when I have time and see if I can come up with some.
 * I can however, right off the top of my head, name (or at least as close as possible) some Fox anchors/commentators that were/are against the Iraq war... Juan Williams, that black haired lady (Mara something?), Mort Kondrake or whatever his name is, Alan Colmes or however you spell it, and others that I can only picture the faces of. The point is, no network was 100% one way or the other.. including only a handful of quotes from selected journalists and/or commentators is 1)making those journalists more important than they should be, and 2) misleading, 3) being way too specific with an article about all media coverage of a topic.
 * In addition to that, you cannot describe the coverage of any channel based on the statements of a few.. Fox, MSNBC and other networks also gave countless hours of airtime to Democrat senators and congressmen giving their anti-Iraq-war opinions, anti-war rallies, anti-war celebrities, protests, etc, etc.


 * Secondly, I said millions of newspapers, magazines and networks that reported on the war - not networks alone. This is about "Media coverage" not just cable news coverage.

"The images of the statue falling came as a shock to many Arab viewers who had been led to believe that Iraq was winning the war."

eh? I thought most Arab viewers were shocked by the lack of support and rapid collapse of the regime. --erzengel 1540 UTC - 23 Apr 2003

Who is "Robert Entman"? Why should any weight be attached to his views? -- 217.24.129.50 15:51 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

He is an American professor in communication in the University of North Carolina in the US. Authored several books. His next book to publish is "Projections of Power : Framing News, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy ", which is said to analyze impact of medias on foreign politics. I think typing his name in google will give you any further indication of why any weight could be attached to his views. On the first 10 hits, I found http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/communication/www/faculty_profiles/entman/ which should help you.

As it happens, this man is enlightened enough to give interviews to foreign journalists (hear, non American) which allow non American to benefit from his views from time to time. :-)

User:anthere

-

The images did not show that the plaza where the statue stood, surrounded by the dozens of Iraqis, was otherwise empty, and was cordoned off by U.S. tanks.

OK, someone has to explain the importance of this sentence. First, the images I saw that day DID show that the plaza was otherwise empty other than the crowd of Iraqis around the statue. I saw no attempt to make the crowd look bigger than it was... I for one had a pretty clear picture of how many people were there. Secondly, the images I saw - live, on that day - did show that US tanks were keeping the plaza safe and empty of Iraqi forces.. (Or as you put it, "cordoned off"). What else do you expect them to do? When Coalition forces moved into any section of Baghdad (or other cities) they immediately secured the area. They had to do that and I don't think anyone would expect anything else. It wasn't a safe place to be.. it was a war zone. You move in - you have to take defensive positions around the area to keep enemy military forces out. The live coverage of the event that I saw even included interviews with Marines sitting around the plaza on tanks watching for Iraqi forces. So, with these things in mind - please explain why this sentence is necessary.

-


 * I saw footage of the anti-US protests. Today, I even saw more footage of the few thousand Shiites protesting US presence in the country, for the third or fourth day in a row. No one has ever claimed that all Iraqis are happy to be liberated. There are (and probably always will be) some that are loyal to Saddam.


 * Do you really think the only reason a person could be against the U.S. presence is because of personal loyalty to Saddam? No other possible reason? Ever seen Red Dawn? A lot of people just don't take kindly to invading forces, whatever their justification for being there. -- John Owens

Please compare these three sentences, 216.229.90.232:


 * (i) Notable deaths include the April 8 accidental death of journalists by U.S. fire in Baghdad. This violates the Wikipedia NPOV policy, because it assumes something for which we have no evidence - i.e., that the deaths of journalists opposed to the US were "accidental".


 * (ii) Notable deaths include the April 8 deliberate death of journalists by U.S. fire in Baghdad This violates the Wikipedia NPOV policy, because it assumes something for which we have no evidence - i.e., that the deaths of journalists opposed to the US were "deliberate".


 * (iii) Notable deaths include the April 8 death of journalists by U.S. fire in Baghdad. This is the appropriate. It makes no assumptions, simply reports the known facts. It is not for you (or me) to make guesses. This is an encyclopedia, not a chat room.

Thank you (in advance) for respecting our NPOV policy. Tannin 08:22 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)


 * I agree with Tannin on this issue. erzengel 0835 UTC - 25 Apr 2003


 * Thats fine. I would have assumed that any incident of "friendly fire" in a war would be considered accidental until proven otherwise. At this point, we're not even sure that all of these incidents were the result of U.S. fire.


 * 04:24 (cur; last) . . 216.229.90.232 (Talk | block) (look above the &lt;hr&gt;.... the questions been there for a long time - unanswered)

Above the one you added? I thought that it was made pretty clear who Robert Entman was. -- John Owens


 * Below the Entman thing... I added a header separated the question I am talking about and the answers below it which were in response to a question that was deleted by someone else for no apparent reason.
 * It's a little paragraph that starts with the statement in question


 * Oh, you mean the &lt;hr&gt; you put in between your questions and a couple of replies to them? (Not saying those necessarily answered your questions in full, just seems odd you'd separate them like that.) -- John Owens 09:52 May 9, 2003 (UTC)


 * THose aren't replies to my question. That is me (and someone else) replying to a question that someone deleted. The original question that we were replying to (under the new header) was about why the networks didn't show the Iraqi's protesting in Baghdad. I answered by saying they did (I saw footage of the anti-US protests).. I wouldn't know about it if they didn't. They showed tons of footage of it. My question - above the newly added header - has never been answered.


 * You know, this would be a lot easier to sort out if you'd just sign your posts in some way. :p -- John Owens 10:04 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

my country was allowed very little good placed journalists, so most of the movies displayed on big national network were directly "fed" to us by american journalists hosted by the american army. This is what we have been fed by american media. Other independant journalists were able to take movies which showed different things and different angles that the angles offered by american journalists. In any case, I already tried to explain that to you, and you already stated that this was french media report, and that what french media had showed us (coming from american info as I mentionned) was silly. Media was not reporting the fall of the statue did not occur. It was reporting it did not occur the way the movie showed.


 * The question is up farther on the page, by the way.


 * The page is too messy. I can't find pieces


 * The French reports were "silly" because they were jumping to conclusions that have not been (or in some cases cannot be) verified.


 * It seems to me the top of this page has probably been partially deleted, for our discussion there seems to be missing parts to be coherent. I see not what "jumping to conclusion that have not been verified" is related too here.


 * This question is different. This sentence is stating that 1) the images seen on US television did not show that the plaza was largely empty,


 * you are quietly deforming sentences to suit your own needs. The sentence is definitly not saying that the images were seen on US television. Neither US, nor television.


 * and 2) US tanks were sealing off the plaza. I watched the event happen live on US television and clearly saw both. As I say above, they even interviewed the Marines sitting around on tanks (that you're claiming were not seen). There were wide shots of the entire plaza, showing the crowd of Iraqis around the statue. My question is, why are we saying that the images did not show two things that were clearly visible?


 * Most images (images, not movies), in particular seen in newspapers or on the net, and yes, sometimes on TV, initially, were not showing long wide shot of the place. they were zooming on the statue, and on a couple of demonstrators, on a hammer... with comments clearly misleading readers to believe the crowd was huge for example. Typically, this type of images http://www.boston.com/news/packages/iraq/globe_stories/041003_snap_judgements.htm


 * Which is *precisely* why there was later so much noise about disinformation as regards that statue topic.


 * We might as well say that the images did not show that the sky was blue.

The following text has been moved from Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq.


 * And while we're on the subject of the Weekly Standard, let's do a quick check of the quality of their prewar reports on Iraq, shall we? Searching their website with google, the first 5 prewar reports that I get are:


 * http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/249vnlte.asp


 * (generic Saddam-Has-WMDs article)


 * http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/975qekmc.asp


 * There will probably be a "honeymoon" period, as Iraqis of all ethnic and religious groups rejoice in their liberation. 


 * http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/791frwyo.asp?pg=2


 * (Nothing special, just French/Iraqi history)


 * http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/607rkunu.asp


 *  If Saddam Hussein was a major threat in February 1998, when President Clinton prepared this country for war and U.N. inspectors were still inside Iraq, it stands to reason that in the absence of those inspectors monitoring his weapons build-up, Saddam is an even greater threat today.  (followed by a jab at democrats for thinking that the WMD case hasn't been properly made)


 * http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/882wsqal.asp?pg=2


 * 'We know Saddam is building weapons of mass destruction and that he is hiding them. Therefore, the argument runs, he has only three choices: admit it, and either disarm entirely or face an American invasion; deny it, and then try to prevent weapons inspectors from finding the facilities and weapons, and face an American invasion; or deny it, and let the inspectors roam freely until they prove him a liar, and then face an American invasion. Disarming is tantamount to suicide. Therefore, Saddam will lie or obstruct or both, in which case the wording of U.N. Security Council resolutions doesn't matter. Saddam will give the United States the pretext for invasion, and the French and Russians will not be able to stop Bush. ''


 * I could go on, but they have about the same ratio: The Weekly Standard was trash then, and it's still trash. Rei


 * Excuse me, but are you questioning the accuracy of one ideologically driven magazine, but not another? I would be the first to say that there is both good left and right orientated investigative journalism, but for you to say that since the Standard has published stories which, in hindsight, were way off the mark that consequentially all their work is garbage is bullshit.


 * Lets look at some prewar predictions from left of center sources, shall we.


 * $100/brl + oil prices
 * The “Silent Genocide” which was going to leave 3 million Afghans dead of starvation, wrong conflict but same asshole.
 * Civil war in Iraq
 * Baghdad would turn into Stalingrad [a real bummer for you I am sure]
 * The Arab street would rise up against the US
 * Poor War Planning/ overstreched supply lines
 * US/British forces bogged down
 * The looting of 170,000 pieces from Iraq’s national museum
 * The environmental destruction that was Saddam was going to unleash.
 * Millions dying from starvation in post war Iraq.


 * This one from Salon was my favorite. It was the entire front page of Salon.com’s index filled with stories of how Iraq would spark unspeakable Armageddon upon earth. Just a sample.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/01/22/iraq_doom/index_np.html


 * So please, spare me you “the Weekly Standard/right wing media is Garbage” line. TDC 21:34, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm not out here trying to post 5 paragraphs based on Salon as an encyclopedia article. But since you brought it up, concerning what they call "worst case scenarios" and state "We are drawn to worst-case scenarios, even as we know we should not trust them.", let's not pass over the fact that one of the three was "Al-Qaida feeds off runaway anti-Western sentiment in the region and mounts new terrorist attacks" which did happen many times over, and one of the other of the three (splitting into warring factions) is still up in the air. As for your others:


 * That wasn't a leftist magazine-story that oil prices could hit 100$ a barrel: that was Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, discussing what would happen if Iraqi oil fields got set ablaze. Do your research.  Chomsky just repeated what was being published all over mainstream news.


 * You're saying there's no chance of civil war in Iraq? That's rich, especially since there's been a big rise in local militias since the Ashoura attacks and Sistani is actively working to scuttle the constitution.


 * That wasn't a claim by leftists - it's a quote from Tariq Aziz ("Iraq will become a second Stalingrad for the British and American invaders,"). I know, to you we're the same.  :P  The mainstream media referenced this claim, and then widely discounted it - the most credence I can find, in a quick google search, given to Aziz's claim is from that wacky-liberal magazine the Christian Science Monitor (you know, the magazine which pushed one of the sets of forged galloway documents).


 * Depends on what you call the arab street and "rise up". Favorable public opinion in the US in much of the Arab world has fallen to the low teens from the 20s, according to the latest Pew polls.  Attacks against Americans - in Iraq and outside - have drasticly increased.  Heck, they even got a European government's regime changed.  What more do you want?


 * I'd call the current situation incredibly poor planning. If you want examples, read old versions of magazines like the Weekly Standard about what a cakewalk this was going to be, and their optimistic numbers of troops.  Perle wanted only 40,000 troops, and Rumsfeld wanted 120,000.  Thank god we still had Shinseiki, or it would have been an utter disaster.


 * We were supposed to be, by the Bush admin's prediction, down to 30k troops by last fall. We're still at about as many as we had last summer.  The current troop rotations are planning on over 100k troops through 2006.  How on earth can you call this not bogged down?


 * Apparently you've never done a web search of who was making the claims about how Saddam would trash the environment. My first two hits on the subject were from ABC News and the State Department.  That wacky (and apparently conservative, by your views of who is claiming what) group, the Environment Media Service, issued a reported about how it was unlikely that Iraq would torch its own wells.  Here's one for you: "US Military Worry of Oil Fires, Nerve Gas If It Invades Iraq" .  Want more?   My other top hits include CNN (also quoting the military), Illuminati conspiracy theorists, a conservative chat board, a pro-war op-ed in the Austin Review....


 * How about this: For each time you slander liberals, you have to apologize. You've got a half dozen apologies already queued up here - get started. -- Rei

Edited Saddam Statue information
Information Clearing House photo was clearly taken after fall of Statue. Updated information See photo taken that was taken during event. http://www.right-thinking.com/images/uploads/statue_debunk.jpg

link not working so I am using this temp link for now http://boards.collectors-society.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=712863&page=0&vc=1#Post712863

Shouldn't army report be put back in?

Newspaper Coverage
It is quite unreasonable to not have anything on the Newspaper coverage of the invasion to now. All that this article covers is televised media, not printed media. -- AJFederation

Casualty milestones
I think, in the long wrong if the 1000 or 2000 milestones are remembered, its probably the 1000th that will be remembered the most. Therefore, the 1000th probably warrants more space here than the 2000th. I suspect the 2000th seems more signficant now, merely because its more recent. The 1000th happened during a presidential campaign, and probably had more impact and notice. I'm not suggesting either needs to be mentioned, but just that the 2000th is less signficant. --Rob 16:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Toppling of Statue
Wikipedia must be the only outfit in the world that still believes this thoroughly discredited cock and bull story. Aside from the fact that there are several pictures on the internet that show that the street was virtually empty that day, all you would have to do is watch the documentary Control Room to see that it was a staged incident. If the person editing this piece is a supporter of the Iraq War fine, but trying to defend a sloppy piece of pentagon propaganda is intellectually dishonest. user:Annoymous

What does it mean anyways that the event was "staged"? It was a genuine act of vandalism of the statue. You think it was done with CGI? The media were housed across the square. So regardless of who pulled the statue down, it was going to be filmed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.44.230 (talk) 23:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, perhaps that might of meant something with that sad attempt at apologist dribble had he said "fake" instead of staged. The event was staged by US troops, this has been well documented. That you failed at even trying to ignore this with a technicality, as that wasnt correcting him on his words, he never mentioned the statue wasnt pulled down and staged is the correct word to use, shows how inept you Pro-War supporters are. Hahaha.

Order of sections
I have tried to give the article a more linear, coherent structure, by reordering the sections. I've put the more general categories up top, and I've moved the related sections closer to one another. Benzocane 17:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I have also changed the 'sympathetic' 'unsympathetic' subsection headings in order to make them more clear and more consistent with wiki language in similar entries.Benzocane 18:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I have also added and cleaned up the bias subsections for the sake of clarity. I am still working on this and would appreciate help. Currently, the subsection on pro-u.s. bias is basically unsourced. I'm having trouble locating good sources for these claims. Any thoughts? Benzocane 19:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I took a look at the section on anti-U.S. bias (you called it pro-U.S. bias above, but I think you mean the opposite). I agree that the information is basically unsourced.  The one really strong source is the Michael O'Hanlon piece, which is a fairly rigorous analysis of the "negativity" or "positivity" of the media coverage of the invasion.  O'Hanlon did find that negative stories in most outlets, including the NYT as well as the WSJ and Washington Times tended to be more negative than positive.  But I understood the central point of his analysis to be that this was because things were generally going more negatively than positively with the invasion.  As O'Hanlon wrote: "trends on the ground do more to determine the nature of U.S.  media coverage of Iraq than any biases of reporters."  In other words, the news from Iraq was bad because, in fact, the news from Iraq was bad. I don't think then that his analysis is evidence for an anti-U.S. bias.  As for the AP allegedly making up a stringer, I couldn't find any really reputable source saying that this happened. So that is my two cents.  Interested to know if  anyone disagrees. --Mackabean 14:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I did some more work on the order of the sections, all in the spirit of making this article more readable. In particular, I moved the criticisms of the U.S. mainstream media to make it a subsection of the mainstream media. I also put U.S. independent media right after U.S. mainstream media because it seemed to give better continuity.  And I split the attacks on Al Jazeera and the Palestine hotel into separate sections. Thoughts on whether this reorg. makes it better?  --Mackabean 20:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Iraqi media coverage
One issue that seemed to be missing from this article entirely was a discussion of Iraqi media coverage of the invasion. I have added that section, focusing on 3 points: 1) State control of Iraqi media prior to the invasion (by all accounts, Saddam was a vicious opponent of a free press); 2) The proliferation of media outlets post invasion; and 3) U.S. efforts to affect Iraqi media coverage by planting stories. I welcome thoughts as to whether there are other issues under the heading of Iraqi media coverage that are worthy of including here. --Mackabean 16:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Coverage of casualties
As part of the effort to clean this article up, I moved the section previously titled "Bodies returning to Dover" to the Coverage of Casualties section. First, "Bodies returning" seems pretty unencyplopedic and probably violates NPOV. It also seems more appropriately a subset of that larger issue (coverage of casualties), as opposed to its own section.

I have some further thoughts/questions on this section. 1. Should this actually be somewhere under U.S. mainstream media coverage? Because I imagine the coverage of casualties was very different in the international and especially Iraqi media. 2. If not, does anyone have information about how the non US media covered casualties? 3. Right now this just talks about U.S. military casualties. Does anyone have good information on the coverage of civilian casualties. 4. There is a lot of discussion about the coverage of the 1000th, 2000th, and 3000th casualties right now. It seems to be more than is necessary. Does anyone think it should be cut down? Thanks. --Mackabean 17:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold
Lead para with just one sentence is not acceptable. Please work on the lead section as per WP:Lead. Once you completed it, please ping me on my talk page. --Kalyan 20:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The article doesn't provide sources for the information and i took the first section ("U.S. mainstream media coverage") and added "citation needed" tags where references and sources need to be provided. Once you add references, please ping me on my talk page.--Kalyan 18:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it'd be better if you went ahead and failed the article; while I feel it is very close to GA status, I think it needs more time and/or attention than I can give it right now. Thanks for the pointers and assistance, though. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 18:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, thanks for adding the tags, by the way. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 18:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
 * This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:09, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

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