TV Networks Scale Back Iraq War Coverage

Violence is down drastically in Iraq, but so is coverage of the conflict by ABC, NBC, and CBS, who no longer have full-time correspondents in the country, the New York Times reports. Instead, the networks are shifting their focus to Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Afghanistan was the forgotten war,” said one reporter. “Now it’s swapping places with Iraq.”

The three networks had devoted 423 minutes to Iraq during nightly newscasts through Dec. 19, down from 1,888 minutes in 2007. As budget pressures persist, networks have talked about sharing resources and dispatching reporters to Iraq when news warrants. Said a veteran correspondent: “The country is at war and there is not a correspondent to cover it. Sad.”
(More television news stories.)