Media in Iraq Cheapskates Americans

This morning I was interviewed by one of Radio trade TALKERS magazine’s “Heavy Hundred” (the 100 most important radio talk hosts in America), Brad Messer of CBS’s San Antonio station KTSA.

Brad said he’d tried to have a journalist from Iraq on his show at least once a month. However, his parent CBS usually tells him there’s none available there or just a local stringer.

Last month, I posted “Media in Iraq: Cowardice or Cheapness” that “a more central problem” than bias or risk in the U.S. media’s inadequate coverage of the war and developments in Iraq may be “the cheapness of the media in devoting resources to the war.” There are too few reporters to cover the many positive stories, instead focusing on the “if it bleeds, it leads” bombings around Baghdad, often staged for their coverage.

I ended that post:

If I were more of a Marxist, I would see a media capitalist conspiracy!
BTW: I have an excellent op-ed prepared going into much more depth and revelation on this subject. Any help getting it placed would reduce my Marxist suspicions.

Leading journalism trade newspaper Editor & Publisher kept me from waving the red flag by publishing my column, “Is the Press Covering the Iraq War On The Cheap.”

Letters to the editor of E&P from knowledgeable readers were favorable.

What one news business commentator calls “the news media’s dirty little secrets” is that inexpensive freelancers and locals are heavily used, of sometimes questionable abilities and agenda. A Committee to Protect Journalists article in 2004 on these “fixers” has the Knight Ridder bureau chief in Baghdad saying, “Their work has changed in the last year I’ve been here from making phone calls to going out and covering stories.” The Islamabad bureau chief for Associated Press says, “Their role is changing from a source to a contributor.”

There have been some cases of such locals being suspected of complicity in staging “news” of bombings, or of fabricating news. See here, or here, and here, for examples.

Today’s E&P front-pages James Carroll, former editor at the Los Angeles Times, speaking to the American Society of Newspaper Editors:

Carroll said bluntly that the goal of current newspaper owners is “money, that’s it.”…”It’s not surprising that there is a backlash today against those who are presumed to be gatekeepers.”…[Carroll] noting that too many owners are going for “milking a dying business for all it is worth. The symptoms of harvesting are staring us in the face.” He added that it is “most especially, in high profit margins.” He said that the average newspaper profit margin remains 19.5%.

Another newspaper business analyst points out in The New Yorker, that just sold McClatchy newspaper chain’s “operating margin last year was twenty-eight per cent….newspaper chains have become relentless in their pursuit of cost-cutting. Although much of this has been bad for the art of journalism, it has been very good for the bottom line.”

Those newspaper margins are far higher than those of oil companies, or most any other industry. Talking heads are often paid millions of dollars for their frequent inanity.

Gee, do ya think the press can spare something more than pocket change to serve their customers with the better coverage deserved about the Iraq war?