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It looks as if we've reached the point where we are finally starting to see the media reporting some of the good news coming out of Iraq. I'm not sure whether this is a product of the heated criticisms leveled at U.S. news organizations in recent weeks by everyone from pundits to members of Congress returning from Iraq, or whether it's that our progress there has reached the point where it's become simply undeniable. Perhaps it's a combination of the two. In my opinion we're still nowhere near receiving truly balanced coverage of the situation in Iraq, but it's fair...

Heavy viewers of the Fox News Channel are nearly four times as likely to hold demonstrably untrue positions about the war in Iraq as media consumers who rely on National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System, according to a study released this week by a research center affiliated with the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs. "When evidence surfaces that a significant portion of the public has just got a hole in the picture ... this is a potential problem in the way democracy functions," says Clay Ramsay, research director for the Washington-based Program on International Policy Attitudes,...

Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s senior foreign correspondent, thinks that journalists censored themselves during the war in Iraq. She told CNBC’s Tina Brown that "the media was muzzled" and "intimidated" and that a "climate of fear and self-censorship" inhibited coverage of the war. The culprits: the Bush administration and its "foot soldiers at Fox News." (Ironically, one media watchdog has declared CBS the "most pro-war" in its coverage.) But when challenged to cite a story that she was prevented from reporting, she came up short. She could only point to a "question of tone." "It’s really a question of really asking the...

<p>CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship."</p> <p>As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administrationline in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind the invasion.</p>

<p>CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship."</p> <p>As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administration line in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind the invasion.</p>

<p>Amanpour: CNN practiced self-censorship CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship." As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administrationline in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind the invasion.</p>

Has the nation's television audience burned out on serious news? American soldiers are dying in Iraq almost daily; questions continue to swirl around the Bush administration's case for the invasion there in March; and U.S. Marines are poised off the coast of Liberia. At home, decisions by the Supreme Court prompted national debates on affirmative action and gay rights; a basketball star stands accused of sexual assault; and the California governorship hangs in the balance. And yet, television news viewers are tuning out. The total evening news audience on the broadcast networks has been lower this summer than it was...

August 11, 2003 Suffering News Burnout? The Rest of America Is, TooBy JIM RUTENBERG as the nation's television audience burned out on serious news? Kuni Takahashi/Boston Herald, via Reflex News; ReutersDespite a number of serious news events playing out this summer — like the war in Iraq, above, and the civil war in Liberia — television news programs have been drawing fewer viewers than last year. American soldiers are dying in Iraq almost daily, questions are continuing to swirl around the Bush administration's case for the March invasion and United States Marines are poised off the coast of Liberia....

Pay no mind to the massive convoy of media trucks outside the Palestine Hotel in Iraq's occupied capital. They're passé. The age of the modern wired war reporter is here, and it doesn't lie with the TV crews. In April, I decided to cover the war in Iraq as a mobile war reporter, meaning I had to travel as light as possible. I spent a month in a post-post-modern experiment, running a mobile wire service using e-mail, a satellite phone and a laptop--as well as a fair amount of guts and insanity. My gear performed superbly, after a few initial...

In a recent newspaper profile, CNN anchor Aaron Brown is captured trying to be witty as he cobbles together his "Newsnight" show. He asks his co-workers, "So what the hell are we going to sell here?" There’s an easy answer if you watch television: failure. For most of the post-war period, the networks have sold us failure. The details change here and there, but the pitch remains the same. Failure to find weapons of mass destruction. Failure to work with do-nothings at the UN. Failure to restore water and electricity supplies even as saboteurs seek to undo every good deed....

t's 7:05 P.M. on Wednesday, July 23, and I'm channel surfing the networks to hear the latest on the war. On Tuesday, unconfirmed reports that Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, had been killed were floating the airwaves. So, naturally, I'm eager to hear what had transpired throughout the day. NBC confirms the report, but immediately bashes the U.S. military for using "such heavy firepower to take down a few lightly armed men." Interesting. Quickly fed up, I flip over to ABC where reporters insist that the operation was a failure because the military didn't take the diplomatic route and...

THE MEDIA Americans want facts and flagsBy Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 7/14/2003 The American public may want its coverage of the war on terror straight down the middle, but it wants it delivered by people who share its patriotism. That's the finding of a new Pew Research Center survey of 1,200 Americans and their media habits and views. It comes amid an ongoing debate within journalism circles about whether embedded reporters, flag logos on TV screens, and the undiscovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq suggest American news organizations were too jingoistic or complacent in their coverage of the war...

A substantial segment -- 46 percent -- of the American public believes that the news media are becoming too critical of America and that such criticism is weakening national defense, according to findings by a Pew Research Center poll. The vast majority of those surveyed -- 70 percent -- also believes that the media ought to take a more pro-American stand in its reporting of the U.S. actions in Iraq and the war on terrorism. The Pew survey further found that those who are the most critical of the media are likely to be devotees of the Fox News Channel.

<p>Americans want their journalists to show some patriotism, respect the public, increase accuracy and lessen bias, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released yesterday.</p> <p>Seventy percent of the respondents said news organizations should embrace "a decidedly 'pro-American' viewpoint," the poll stated; among conservative Republicans, that figure stood at 85 percent. In comparison, 51 percent said the organizations "stand up for America."</p>

The American Media in WartimeI’m going to begin by reading some samples from the American media coverage of the Iraq conflict. I admit to finding them delightful. Before the war began, my colleague and friend, the ever-voluble Chris Matthews of NBC, said that if we go to war in Iraq, “[It] will join the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut and Somalia in the history of military catastrophe.” NBC analyst General Barry McCaffrey predicted that, if there were a battle for Baghdad, the U.S. could take “a couple to three thousand casualties.”R. W. “Johnny” Apple, the legendary New York...

June Imprimis The American Media in Wartime Brit Hume Brit Hume was named FOX News’s managing editor and chief Washington, D.C., correspondent in January 1997. He is host of Special Report with Brit Hume and a regular panelist on FOX News Sunday. Prior to joining FOX News, he was a broadcast journalist with ABC News for 23 years, including 11 years as Capitol Hill correspondent and eight years as chief White House correspondent. He began his career as a newspaper reporter with the Hartford Times, the Baltimore Evening Sun and United Press International. Mr. Hume was awarded an Emmy...

If you want to waste your time, try engaging Brit Hume in an argument by telling him his Fox News cable network is transparently conservative, a cheerleader for the Bush administration and a mouthpiece for the right wing. "If we were a right-wing channel, that would make us different," he replies. "I'm sure that it looks that way to people who are used to the very liberal American news media." Hume, managing editor of the Fox News Channel and chief Washington correspondent, is making no apologies these days about being different. Fox News was the No. 1-rated cable news network...

Fox Special is on now about the reporters who covered the Iraq War. It was really good. I saw it earlier, its being repeated now. It has commentary by Rick Leventhal, Greg kelly, Col. North and also one of the Producers and a camera man. They all had interesting things to say about their expierences. My only complaint was that it was too short. You could spend an hour with each of them and I would watch it without budging from the TV.

Victim ... Staff Sgt Simon BBC bosses were branded a disgrace last night for deciding to screen video of two dead British soldiers. The sickening footage shows the bodies of Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24. The pair — said to have been executed by Iraqis after being ambushed in Gulf War II — were filmed lying in a dusty street. Devastated relatives still mourning the soldiers accused BBC chiefs of being heartless and begged them to axe the clip. It is due to be shown on BBC2 a week from Sunday. Simon’s heartbroken widow Alison...

ABC News anchor Peter Jennings has defended his network's coverage of the war in Iraq after it was strongly rapped by Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly (a former ABC newsman himself), who charged it was "the most skeptical" of the U.S. led effort. "O'Reilly is not the only person to have decided that," Jennings told the Sacramento Bee on Wednesday. "There are a number of militant conservatives or activist conservatives or whatever you want to call them, who decided that our coverage was liberal and Fox's was accurate. ... I don't quite understand it, because I don't see it in...