Posted by The Editors
on November 7, 2009, 12:29 pm, in reply to "Re: Reporting Iraqi civilian fatalities in a time of war"
Conclusions
... As papers reflect the interests of their readers, it is not surprising that U.S. newspapers
describe more events and tallies related to Coalition deaths than Iraqi civilians.
Nevertheless, it is somewhat inconsistent with the goals of journalism that among
violent deaths in Iraq, it appears more likely an event will be reported in U.S.
newspapers if the decedent is an American. We feel that this study casts an important
light on the role of the media in representing war, and may explain in part why
Americans are so well informed about Coalition deaths and relatively ignorant about
Iraqi deaths. This paper calls into question the extent to which the media plays a role
in promoting and sustaining armed conflict, and even whether or how the media can
be a tool for civilian check on military action or complicit in ongoing warfare [8].
Finally, this work poses a significant challenge to those databases, including
the Iraq Body Count (http://www.iraqbodycount.org). and the Uppsala Conflict Data
Set (http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/UCDP/index.htm), that assess conditions and
fatalities based on media reports. Newspaper data is not impartial or proven and our
study strongly suggests that there are contextual, including possibly cultural and
political, factors that profoundly affect what and how data regarding fatalities in the
Iraq War are being presented.
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