Page 195 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Doctrines of Media and State 185

lenges to the myth that the U.S. has minimized collateral damage in Iraq is likely
a main reason why the reports created such a controversy between critics and
supporters of the Iraq war. By failing to adequately cover large estimates of Iraqi
deaths in detail, media outlets implicitly indicate that they viewed studies pro-
jecting lower Iraqi casualty counts as more credible. This trend becomes more
apparent when looking at the reactions to the Iraq Body Count project, as con-
trasted with reactions to the Lancet reports.
The Lancet reports, conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins, the
Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Columbia University, estimated that
approximately 100,000 Iraqi civilians died in the 17.8 months (or one and a half
years) after the 2003 invasion, and that approximately 650,000 Iraqis died
through 2006 due to the escalation of post-invasion violen~e.'~ The surveys were
conducted door-to-door in dozens of different neighborhoods, in which thou-
sands of Iraqis were questioned.'g Researchers intentionally left out the city of
Falluja (in the 2004 study) so as to skirt any criticisms that this part of the sam-
ple would lead to an overestimate of the total fatalities in Iraq. In the 2004 study,
women and children were cited as "frequent victims" in U.S. occupied Iraq. Ac-
cording to the Los Angeles Times summary of the 2004 Lancet report, 84% of
the deaths were said to be due to coalition forces-95 percent of which were due
to the so-called "precision guided" air strikes coming from the U.S. and its al-
lies.20 The 2006 report also found a large percentage (3 l percent) of Iraqi deaths
to be the fault of occupying forces. The risk of violent death was fifty-eight
times higher from 2003 to 2004 than it had been before the collapse of Saddam's
regime.21 The 2006 report found that an estimated 2.5 percent of the Iraqi popu-
lation had perished under U.S. occupation since 2003.~~
The Lancet reports were reported in the American mainstream media, al-
though they did not receive front-page coverage in the most prestigious national
newspapers when they were released. These papers did not omit the reports from
their coverage, but did not consider them feature-worthy material. Out of the
three leading American newspapers, (the Los Angeles Times, New York Times,
and Washington Post), only the Washington Post wrote its own piece on the first
Lancet report. The other two papers instead picked up stories from British pa-
pers that had already written about the study. Out of the three newspapers, none
ran this story as a feature (on page one) in their print versions, and none posted
the story as a main headline in their Internet sites. The 2004 Lancet study re-
ceived coverage on page A16 of the Washington Post, A4 of the Los Angeles
Times, and A8 of the New York ~imes.'~ Stories that beat out the Lancet report in
terms of gaining front-page coverage (on the day the report was first covered)
included: Yasser Arafat's sickness, the surfacing of a new bin Laden tape, the
impending U.S. attack on Falluja, and the death of eight U.S. marines in Iraq. In
sum, the death of eight Americans was deemed a more salient issue than the
estimated deaths of 100,000 Iraqis. Systematic burial of, and disregard for, the
second Lancet report-pursued largely in the same fashion as with the original
Lancet report-has been discussed at length elsewhere.24 Stories deemed more
important than the second Lancet report in major American newspapers included
Madonna's adoption of a Malawian child, and the discovery of a 100,000 year-