GRIID Releases New Study on Local TV War Coverage

The Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy (GRIID)has released a new study entitled “Violence, Soldier Deaths and Ommissions: Local TV News Coverage of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” This study looks at war coverage during the period from August 1 to November 8, 2005. Key findings of this study are:

The majority of all local TV coverage about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was focused on area soldier deaths or local soldiers returning home.

Coverage of Iraq was primarily focused on violence with little contextual information provided.

Coverage of Afghanistan was almost nonexistent with only three stories about Afghanistan appearing during the study period on all three stations combined.

WXMI had more time devoted to war coverage than WZZM 13 or WOOD 8.

The primary sources used in news coverage were US government officials, military personnel, or friends and family of those in the military.

There were very few Iraqi voices (5) and no Afghani voices in the entire 72 day study period.

There were very few stories with dissenting voices. Cindy Sheehan was the primary dissenting voice in most anti-was stories.

This is the fifth study GRIID has conducted on war coverage since the attacks on the World Trade center in 2001 and the third since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The major difference noted in local news coverage is that there was substantially less coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during this most recent study period compared to the previous studies. In GRIID’s initial study after September 11, 2001, there were a total of 278 stories over a two month period on the US war in Afghanistan. Despite the fact that there are still US military forces carrying out military actions in Afghanistan, there were only three stories on local TV news about Afghanistan in this recent study period. In the first six weeks of the war in Iraq there was over 17 hours of local TV coverage whereas in this study only a total of two hours and twenty-eight minutes of air-time was devoted to the war in Iraq.

The content of the coverage in this study period was similar to what was seen in previous studies. Many of the stories were focused on local soldiers and their families, with some of the longest stories in this period being about local soldiers that had been killed. The voices presented in the stories were predominately from the US government or military. Iraqi and Afghani voices were rarely heard and anti-war voices, with the exception of Cindy Sheehan, were not given much airtime.

If people are concerned with the state of local TV war reporting, we recommend contacting the local stations and demanding improvements in both the quantity and quality of coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For a list of constructive steps the TV stations could take to improve coverage, go to http://www.griid.org/fcc-international_standards.shtml for a list of proposed community standards for War and international coverage. To read the full report on war coverage in Iraq and Afghanistan, go to http://www.griid.org/pdfs/War_Coverage_2005.pdf.

Contact:

WOOD TV 8
News Director: Patti McGettigan
Phone #: 771-9366
E-mail: patti.mcgettigan@lintv.com

WXMI FOX 17
News Director: Tim Dye
Phone #: (616) 364-1717
E-mail: tdye@wxmi.com

WZZM 13
News Director: Tim Geraghty
Phone #: (616) 785-1313
E-mail: tgeraght@wzzm.gannett.com

Grand Rapids Press
Editor: Mike Lloyd
Phone #: (616) 222-5455