Of course he forgot to mention Iraqi death toll estimates. But why did the press?
Virtually none of the dailies or wire services that picked up this story put the 2000 stat in context. In an AP article titled “Iraqis react differently to military death toll,” there’s no mention of an Iraqi death toll. There’s only one sentence that even broaches the subject: “But others noted that many more Iraqis had died in the conflict and said they hope the U.S. ‘occupiers’ will soon go home.”
Yet this is absurd. By juxtaposing the second assertion with the first assertion, the importance of the first is completely trumped.
Another article, published by the LA Times, says “About 200 soldiers from countries allied with the United States also have died, just less than half of them British. Thousands of Iraqis have been killed, and more than 15,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded.” There’s a death toll for ally countries and a stat for the number of wounded Americans. But nothing for Iraq.
Other articles published in the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Detroit Free Press, the Indianapolis Star and USA Today didn’t even touch it.
For the sake of argument, let’s say inaccuracy is the culprit of such indifference. These papers could have done what the New York Times did, which went far and beyond any other daily with its reporting on the subject.
For Iraqis, too, the death toll seems to have accelerated. Estimates for Iraqis are not precise and are subject to much controversy. But according to figures compiled by the allied military forces in Iraq and analyzed by Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, a nonprofit research group, Iraqis have suffered on average more than 50 casualties a day in 2005, including wounded and dead, compared with fewer than 40 a day in 2004.
Iraq Body Count, a nonprofit organization, estimates that 26,000 to 30,000 Iraqi civilians including police officers have died in the entire conflict, though it does not have a figure for military personnel.
That took 115 words. Not much, considering the Iraqi civilian death count is 13 to 15 times the American military death count.
willem.marx (not verified) @ October 26, 2005 - 2:47pm
I was very impressed with the New York Times for even reporting that much, especially the fact that they name more than one source for their Iraq figures. Their online version yesterday evening was showing at least 4 different sources and sets of figures, though this seems to have changed in the later addition.
Al Jazeera, which we might expect to always take the opposite perspective, is also scant on comparisons with US death toll figures, though it does mention the Iraq Body COunt.
I'm not sure that words spent on a subject are indicative of a media source's prioritisation of the subject though by the way....
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