Politics and Press

Iraqi Death Count and the Press

The editor of Editor and Publisher, Greg Mitchell, considers the recently reported estimate of 600,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since the invasion in 2003 in the magazine’s current issue.  He is particularly interested in the issue of the press’s failure to adequately look at and do the hard work to adequately account for Iraq’s civilian deaths.

He considers the credibility of the estimate of 600,000 that came from work carried out by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins, compares it to the credibility of President Bush’s response, looks at the different ways the press dealt with the report, from the AP’s immediate “can’t be right” response to the Washington Post’s more thoughtful consideration, provides some data speculating on what would be comparable numbers in the U.S. and leaves the reader numbed with the reality of what we have created in Iraq. President Bush’s response in a press conference was:

“I am, you know, amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they’re willing to — you know, that there’s a level of violence that they tolerate.”

Read the article at the Editor and Publisher website.