This is what Iraq war coverage has descended to–the summarization of press releases and statements from officials.

This Associated Press story, via the New York Times, summarizes:

“…a U.S. Statement, police Lt. Col. Falah Mohamadawi, police Lt. Ahmed Qassim, the military, the U.S. command, an Associated Press count, the U.S. command, Iraq’s government, the U.S. command, police Col. Ahmed Mijwal, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, police, police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani, the U.S. military, the U.S. command and Iraqi forces.”

My favorite sentence in the article is this one:

“Witnesses reported casualties, but police could not immediately confirm that.”

“Because not just anybody can summarize the news,” is the joke subhead on the blog Protein Wisdom.

But that is what most reports from Iraq are–a summarization of press statements with little if any reporting and very little context.

After reading the report about Iraq, one would think the whole place was one big car-bombing and firefight.

I spent 5 months in oft referred to as ‘restive’ Al Anbar province.

Whenever I watched the CNN versions of these news summaries I kept waiting for the anchor to say, “In other news from Iraq…” and show a bunch of people going about their business and a group of soldiers negotiating the price on a carton of cigarettes with shop owner.

But, I only saw that once.

Evidently there needs to be a ministry of the mundane in Iraq whose whole purpose is to send out an e-mail every day that reads:

“Today, most Iraqis were not kidnapped, or injured in a terrorist attack.  Most Iraqis went to work, ate flat bread, drank tea, chain smoked and watched racy Jordanian soap operas.  Many Iraqis prayed and nearly all slept at some point.,” said Major Ajwan Saeed, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Everyday Life.

The AP would summary would read:

“Under pressure from the media, the Iraqi Government confirmed that life was very dangerous for some Iraqis due to terrorist attacks and kidnappings in a statement released by Major Ajwan Saeed, a Director of a Government Ministry.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 1:34 am and is filed under MSM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.