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Those of you who have been blogosphere readers for a while will be familiar with the name Arthur Chrenkoff. Between May 2004 and September 2005, he was a dogged chronicler of Good News From Iraq and a chief counterbalancing force on the Internet facing the “grim death toll” media.
He’s back from a break in blogging to assess the state of media reporting from Iraq. Read his piece at PJM. A snippet:
Firstly, it is true that Iraq has largely disappeared from the media radar, especially by contrast with three years ago. Whereas that one day in January 2005, some 11,528 stories discussed various aspects of the situation in Iraq and the political response thereto, three years later, only 3,552 did.
Secondly, the balance between the negative and the positive reports has improved dramatically. On January 22, 2008, there have been 1,944 stories published that dwelt largely on bad news from Iraq: 687 about a terrorist attack at a funeral, 713 reporting the clashes with a Shia cult during the Ashura celebrations, 169 stories reporting on recent US military deaths in Iraq, 150 news items about Iraq in Democratic debates, with the remainder made up of other miscellaneous stories.
That was still a significant number, but the tally of positive news now stood at 1,160. Among them, 711 stories commenting on the decline in roadside bomb attacks, 98 reports about the UN envoy acknowledging the improving situation in Iraq, 46 stories about the new IMF report painting a quite positive picture of Iraqi economy, and various other lesser stories. There have also been 448 neutral news stories, largely relating to troop movements, as well as touting General Petraeus as a possible new commander of NATO.
In all, there was one good news story for every 1.67 bad news ones. Certainly makes for an improvement on the one to 27 ratio three years ago.


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