Is ‘War Fatigue’ Determining TV News Coverage of Afghanistan?

By Chris Ariens 

NYT’s Brian Stelter expands on the updated Project for Excellence in Journalism report about how much — or how little — coverage the war in Afghanistan is getting. The Pew Research Center’s PEJ report found major news outlets have been devoting 4% of the news to the war, so far this year.

One senior foreign correspondent for television, when told of the 4 percent coverage figure, said he was impressed — given the relatively small contingent of foreign journalists in Afghanistan.

“There are like seven of us there,” remarked the correspondent, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to call into question his network’s commitment to the war.

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Stelter talked with executives from several TV news networks who echo a familiar refrain:

“Inside the United States, you’ve got audiences that are beginning to suffer from war fatigue,” said Tony Maddox, who oversees international coverage for CNN.

Mr. Maddox said CNN had “worked very hard” to make the war resonate with viewers, sometimes through human interest stories. “It’s always the eternal challenge in terms of international coverage: making the important interesting,” he said.

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