Three areas of news linked to the Iraq war have become controversial among readers of a number of America’s daily newspapers: coverage of anti-war activities, use of gory photographs from Iraq and the lack of numbers in describing deaths among Iraqi soldiers and civilians.
Two of the three have been topics of conversation by readers of The Salt Lake Tribune.
Tribune staffers continue to cover war protesters in Utah, depending upon how newsworthy the demonstration may have been. This newspaper continues to provide coverage of war protests in the United States and in other parts of the world.
The biggest complaint among 30 or so readers I have heard is that coverage of such protests is not extensive enough.
Apparently, these readers want the paper to devote as much ink to the protests as to the war. That is not going to happen — at any American newspaper. When a war is waged by one country on another, lives are at stake. In this case, American lives were at stake as well as those of Iraqi fighters and civilians. Americans — who have neighbors, friends, sons, daughters, fathers and mothers in this fracas — want the latest news and they want frontline observations that allow them to assess the risk and plot the progress of the fighting.
No American lives were at stake during war protests in this country. The French may be angry about the war, but they are not out in the streets smacking each other with stale baguettes.
Sound provincial? War tends to make people provincial. They want to know about their own people first.
But, American newspaper people also care about fairness and keeping a keen eye on all developments in a story. That’s why most of them have tried so hard to include coverage of war protesters on their pages.
The second item, about using gory photographs in newspapers, also has caused controversy — especially among newspaper staffers. USA Today has formed a special committee of five top editors who review all “questionable” photos or those depicting dead bodies, injured children or adult civilians.
Photo personnel at The Boston Globe caught flak from readers when they ran on page 1 a picture of an Iraqi civilian killed by a stray bullet. Globe deputy director of photography Paula Nelson told Editor & Publisher magazine the department debated using the image, but finally decided, “You got a lot from that photo. It showed a casualty, but it also showed the urban fighting involved. It was the first dead body we printed.”
Picking photographs is part art, part science and part gut instinct. A factor in the decision for editors at morning newspapers is the understanding that readers will be munching on bagels or dipping Cheerios out of a bowl of milk while they are reading the news. Some photographers have complained that Iraqi officials have kept them away from bombing sites and battle areas where such pictures might be made. Overall, the wire services have sent very few photos marked “graphic content.”
That third area of concern — civilian casualties — is problematic for editors across the globe. Where, they ask, are we going to get the figures?
Finding that source for reliable figures is like the search for El Dorado: Everyone has a story about the fabled city of gold, but no one has a roadmap that’s clearly marked.
John M. Broder of The New York Times wrote a piece on April 10 that discussed the difficulty American journalists face:
“DOHA, Qatar — The effort to number the dead on the Iraqi side in the war begins with a conundrum: Who is a civilian and who is a soldier? In Basra, for example, ambulance drivers and hospital workers estimate that they have handled 1,000 to 2,000 corpses during the [then] three-week war.
“Some were clearly military . . . others were self-evidently civilians . . . some were burned or blasted beyond recognition by bombs, artillery or grenades.”
And, those are simply the easiest questions. British and American military sources refuse to provide any hard numbers or estimates. The problem of a casualty count will haunt journalists and historians for years.
In the meantime, a Web site (www.iraqbodycount.net/) keeps a running tally of the civilian body count. On Friday it listed a minimum of 1,642 Iraqi civilian deaths and a maximum of 1,904, based on eyewitness accounts. The battle locations and dates are listed in the site’s database.
It isn’t much, but it’s something for interested people to look at.
This Week’s Stats: —–
The Reader Advocate’s phone number is 801-257-8782. Write to the Reader Advocate, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110. reader.advocate@sltrib.com25Number of readers who asked about large print (for the sight impaired) copies of The Tribune: 19Number of readers who want to know why The Tribune has not run Iraqi civilian death counts. 18Number of readers who want The Tribune to leave the Deseret News alone. 5Number of people who believe The Tribune should go to paid obituaries containing only the deceased’s name, birth and death dates and icons, sort of modern petroglyphs.
scoreboard:
Number of readers who asked about large print (for the sight impaired) copies of the Tribune: 25
Number of readers who want to know why The Tribune has not run Iraqi civilian death counts: 19
Number of readers who want The Tribune to leave the Deseret News alone: 18
Number of people who believe The Tribune should go to paid obituaries containing only the deceased’s name, birth and death dates and icons, sort of modern petroglyphs: 5
