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Grand Rapids Press Coverage of Iraq and Iran

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Grand Rapids Press Coverage of Iraq and Iran Reflecting the Government’s Point of View: Grand Rapids Press Coverage of Iraq and Iran November 11 – December 9, 2007 Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy (GRIID) www.mediamouse.org/griid ABOUT GRIID 3 METHODOLOGY 3 CONTENT ANALYSIS 4 Iraq 4 Iran 6 APPENDIX A 8 Iraq Stories 8 Iran Stories 75 APPENDIX B 83 Iraq Briefs 83 Iran Briefs 85 APPENDIX C 88 Sources Cited in Iraq Stories: 88 US Sources 88 Iraqi Sources 88 International Sources 88 Unknown Sources 88 Sources Cited in Iran Stories: 89 APPENDIX D 91 Iraq Coverage Data 91 News Sources: 91 Story Focus: 91 Iran Coverage Data 91 News Sources: 91 GRIID 2 About GRIID GRIID has operated since 1998 and has functioned around three services it offers to the public: GRIID acts as a media watchdog and has primarily monitored and published reports about local news. GRIID does general media literacy education through workshops, public presentations, and in partnership with other educational groups. GRIID works with grassroots and community based groups to develop media strategies and use media as an organizing tool. Methodology The Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy (GRIID) looked at all stories in the Grand Rapids Press covering Iraq and Iran for a four-week period, from November 11 through December 9, 2007. GRIID took all local and wire service stories on Iraq and Iran that appeared in “Section A,” the “Region” section, and the “Business” section. This included full stories and shorter stories usually referred to in the Press as “Briefs.” All news stories are included in Appendix A and the Briefs are in Appendix B. You will notice that many of the stories have some text that is in bold, which signifies that this was part of the original story that was not included in the Grand Rapids Press version. GRIID looked at the amount (48) of stories/Briefs and where they appeared in the paper. We documented stories by theme and found that there were “in country” stories, stories based on US Military strategies, US policy stories, stories with an international focus, violence-based stories, stories that dealt with Private “security contractors,” and local stories. GRIID also looked at how stories were framed, and who was sourced in the stories. Sources cited can be found in Appendix C and all other data can be found in Appendix D. GRIID 3 Content Analysis Iraq There were a total of 42 stories on Iraq during the 4-week study period, with 10 Briefs and 32 full articles. There were several themes addressed in these stories – stories that dealt with what was happening in Iraq that were not war focused, stories based on US military strategies, US policy stories, stories with an international focus, violence-based stories, stories that dealt with private “security contractors,” and local stories. The bulk of the stories dealt with US Military strategies, violence in Iraq, military contractors, and US policy on the occupation of Iraq. The only time that Iraqi perspectives are central in the stories were more human interest, such as the Nov. 11 article that looked at an Iraqi liquor storeowner. When it came to policy matters or human rights issues, Iraqi voices were almost completely absent. As is documented in Appendix C, there were 46 times that US sources were cited as compared to only 9 times that readers were provided an Iraqi perspective. There were 10 articles that focused on US military strategy, including what “gains” or “progress” the US was making in the Iraq war. Consequently, it is no surprise that US military personal are the most widely sourced (22 times) in this 4-week period, with the bulk of those cited being high-ranking officials. There were two stories each on how the US is training Iraqis (Nov. 24 & Dec. 9), how the US was not going to shift Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan (Dec. 6), the use of a new weapons system in Iraq (Nov. 22), and how the US military is working with various Iraqi factions to fight the Insurgency (Nov. 24 & 25). All of these stories present the US presence in Iraqi as fairly positive and adds to the general media coverage trend since September that the “surge” has been working. This trend is so prominent that there is virtually no mention of US troop withdrawal from Iraq, despite public support being at 54% for bringing US troops home immediately, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. A total of 9 stories focused on violence in Iraq during the study period. Most of these stories provided little context for the violence and the reporting reflected violence against both Iraqi civilians and US troops. There are no stories that focused on US military violence perpetrated against Iraqi civilians except in a Nov. 19 Brief that mentions two Iraqi civilians were killed. If anything the stories dealing with this theme tend to present violence as on the decline, such as the story on Nov. 13 with the headline “Baghdad violence down sharply” and a Dec. 2 Brief titled “Iraqi death toll falls again.” In the Dec. 2 Brief, there are statistics provided on Iraqi deaths “according to an Associated Press tally.” There are never any stories that cite human rights reports on Iraqi deaths during this 4-week study, nor is there any mention of the longstanding documentation of groups like Iraq Body Count. There were a total of six stories that dealt with private military contractors in this study period, with one focused on DynCorp (Nov. 12) and the other 5 dealing with the ongoing Blackwater USA investigation. The Blackwater USA stories provide very little information on the GRIID 4 government investigation and no substantive exploration of the historical relationship this private military contractor has with the government. A good example is the New York Times story that appeared in the Grand Rapids Press on Nov. 18. The story frames the issue in the headline and in the first few paragraphs as having more to do with a "family feud" and "family estrangement" than the issue of corruption. The only sources cited in the story are those of the Krongard brothers and Rep. Waxman. At a committee hearing Rep. Waxman requested numerous documents from Mr. Krongard on Blackwater USA, but there is no mention of what exactly was requested by the Representative. There is a section of the original New York Times story that was omitted in the Grand Rapids Press version. The omitted text has more details on Krongard's role in assisting Blackwater USA CEO Erik Prince in procuring mercenary contracts in Afghanistan. Considering the local connection of Erik Prince on this investigation of Blackwater USA’s human rights abuses, it is unfortunate that the Grand Rapids Press does not provide better coverage or at least utilize independent sources who have been following this issue with great detail, such as investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill. The last issue to receive significant attention during the study period was US policy on the Iraq war. There were five stories—a Nov. 12 story about Bush putting aside partisan politics to celebrate Veteran’s Day, a Nov. 28 story that deals with polling on US policy in Iraq, and Nov. 15, 17, and Dec. 9, all which deal with US funding for the war in Iraq. The Nov. 15 Associated Press story was based on a Congressional vote on Iraq War funding legislation. The version that the Grand Rapids Press ran was considerably shorter than the original version. The omitted portion of the AP story provides some of the details of the bill that was passed in the House of Representatives, bill H.R.4156. Why would the Press omit the text of the story that actually provided readers with what the legislation was proposing? The shortened version of the story gives the impression that this legislation is about "bringing troops home in coming weeks with a goal of ending combat by December 2008,” when in fact, what H.R.4156 actually says is that US troops will be redeployed in Iraq and that as many as 30,000 US troops will remain in that country. Two days later (Nov. 17), the story focused on the Senate vote. The AP story begins by saying that the Democrats have failed to stop funding the war or bring US troops home despite being elected a year ago by an anti-war vote. The story ends with similar comments but says: "Since taking the reins of Congress in January, Democrats have struggled to pass any significant anti-war legislation. Measures that passed along party lines in the House repeatedly sank in the Senate, where Democrats hold a much narrower majority and 60 votes are routinely needed to overcome procedural hurdles." Why doesn't the story further investigate the Democrat's failure to block funding for the war? The article also states, "The delay will satisfy a Democratic support base that is fiercely anti- war." What is this statement based on? There was no poll or any response by the Democratic Party's base to support such a claim. It may be true that the Democratic Party’s base of supporters are disproportionately anti-war, but this story and the December 9 article present the Democratic Party themselves as being in opposition to the administration’s Iraq policy and as an anti-war party, despite voting for every funding request for the war since January of 2007. In GRIID 5 addition to presenting the Democratic Party as representing anti-war sentiment, the Grand Rapids Press never mentions or cites a single anti-war organization, whether they are locally based or one of the national groups that continue to be active and could provide an counter- position on these legislative issues.
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