Progress in Iraq and the media's coverage of it

So, it seems there’s good news coming out of Iraq today, apparently the number of US troop deaths, according to the associated press, have reached their lowest point since February 2004. This would be great news in and of itself but the positives do not end there. In accordance with the decline in US deaths, Iraqi deaths in May are down more than half from what they were April. And as if that wasn’t enough oil production, a major source of revenue for Iraq, is at a post-war high. But again that is not all... At the same time all of this has been happening Iraqi forces have taken the lead in offensives in Mosul, Sadr city, and Basra with success.

This string of extremely important developments in Iraq certainly must have set the headlines at all the major newspapers ablaze right?

Well let’s see...

The New York Times apparently found a story about China’s Olympic team and the 50 year decline in Baghdad’s Jewish population to be more imperative than what’s happening in Iraq.

The Washington post decided that in fact a fire at universal studios and a story on how Iranians really like us were far more important than positive developments in Iraq.

The LA Times thought it appropriate to dedicate their coverage to every angle of the universal studios fire. But, while they buried news on Iraq, at least we can all stop worrying about the location of the MTV Movie Awards, thanks, of course, to their brilliant coverage.

But the Chicago Tribune is perhaps the best example of a newspaper with its priorities in order. Here is their headline "Easing the traffic mess around train stations", oh and of course they made the decision to run a story about the dangers of lawn mowers. All of this while not mentioning a word of the positives in Iraq on their website…. how nice.