As discussed in today’s Media Menu, the New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about the broadcast news networks redeploying full-time correspondents from Iraq to other regions of the Middle East. Joseph Angotti, a former VP of NBC News, says in the article he “could not recall any other time when all three major broadcast networks lacked correspondents in an active war zone that involved United States forces.”
Stelter writes the networks, who would not talk on the record regarding the decision, will “maintain skeleton bureaus in heavily fortified compounds” in Iraq.
But the diminished coverage there means more coverage in other countries. “The television networks are trying to add newspeople in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with expectations that the Obama administration will focus on the conflict there,” he writes.
As for the cablers, “CNN and the Fox News Channel, both cable news channels with 24 hours to fill, each keep one correspondent in Iraq,” writes Stelter.