1115.org

You may or may not have noticed, but coverage of the Iraq war has really dropped this year:

According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been “massively scaled back this year.” Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The “CBS Evening News” has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC’s “World News” and 74 minutes on “NBC Nightly News.”

A total of 181 weekday minutes of coverage by three networks in 24 weeks works out to about 30 seconds per newscast. That’s down from 90 seconds per newscast last year (which wasn’t very much to start with).

Paul Friedman, a senior vice president at CBS News, helpfully explained that their reduced coverage is partly due to staffing issues:

…the news division does not get reports from Iraq on television “with enough frequency to justify keeping a very, very large bureau in Baghdad.” He said CBS correspondents can “get in there very quickly when a story merits it.”

Just to be clear, when he says “a very, very large bureau in Baghdad”, he means “a single full-time correspondent”:

CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.

With such truth-telling skills, it’s a wonder Friedman isn’t working for the Bush administration. Or the McCain campaign. Or, as some people manage to do despite the Hatch Act, for both at the same time.

Meanwhile, how’s this for a slogan: “CBS News. You can trust them. Because they always tell you the truth. About everything.”