If it's not biased, please explain this.
Saddam Trial Coverage
October 16, 2005 to March 15, 2006:
Saddam Courtroom Antics: 33%
Trial Unfair to Saddam: 13%
Testimony/Evidence of Guilt: 13%
Trial Not Safe for Lawyers: 12%
Iraqi Public Reaction: 12%
Background of Case: 6%
Other/General Procedural: 11%
Now, the text of the March 20 Media Reality Check:
Covering Saddam's Shenanigans, Not His Crimes
ABC, CBS, and NBC's Trial News Stresses Ex-Dictator's Outbursts, Not
Evidence or Victims' Testimony
With the Iraq war now three years old, one of its main achievements --
the toppling of Saddam Hussein's mass-murdering dictatorship -- has
been largely shunted to the sidelines as the media focus on bad news:
terrorist attacks, U.S. casualties and pessimistic warnings that Iraq
is on the verge of "civil war."
Not even Saddam's trial for crimes against humanity has encouraged TV
to take more than a cursory look at the ex-dictator's horrifying
record. MRC analysts reviewed every mention of the trial on the ABC,
CBS and NBC evening news from October 16 (when the networks began
previewing the trial) through
March 15 (when Saddam himself took the stand).
MRC found the networks spent nearly three times as much airtime on
Saddam's courtroom antics as on the serious testimony of his victims
and the documentary evidence that Saddam himself ordered the killing
of more than 140 residents of the Shiite town of Dujail and the
imprisonment and torture of hundreds more townspeople. Details:
> He's No O.J. Simpson. Saddam's trial has been mentioned in just 64
stories (including brief anchor-read items) over the last 5 months.
Total coverage amounted to just under 90 minutes. The CBS Evening
News offered the most coverage (21 stories, 34 minutes) followed by
ABC's World News Tonight (23 stories, 30 minutes). NBC Nightly News
aired the least: 20 stories amounting to 25 and one half minutes of
coverage, barely five minutes per month.
In contrast, the first six months of O.J. Simpson's murder trial
garnered 431 stories (824 minutes) from those same networks, a 1994
Center for Media and Public Affairs study found. Simpson was accused
of killing two people; Saddam is thought responsible for hundreds of
thousands of deaths.
> Saddam Steals the Show. In spite of a record equal to some of the
worst tyrants in human history, reporters found Saddam's personal
reactions and orchestrated antics more compelling than the witness
testimony against him. The networks gave Saddam's behavior more
airtime than any other topic -- nearly 30 minutes, one-third of the
coverage.
In contrast, the networks allotted just 11 and a half minutes for
witness testimony and evidence, just slightly below the nearly 12
minutes devoted to suggestions Saddam would not get a fair hearing.
On the Oct. 18 World News Tonight, ABC's Jim Sciutto pointed out how
"human rights groups doubt the former dictator will get a fair
trial." On March 15, after Saddam's testimony was cut off by the
judge, ABC showed complaints from Ramsey Clark: "Look, he's on trial
for his life. A defendant has a right to give his background and his
thoughts and his emotions."
> Hiding the Evidence. The networks provided merely sporadic coverage
of the evidence. ABC was the only newscast to air a full report on
Saddam's admission on March 1 that he ordered the Dujail killings.
(CBS and NBC gave that news just 11 and 18 seconds, respectively).
Only CBS mentioned the December 21 testimony of Ali al-Haydari, who
was 14 when he saw evidence of torture: "I heard screaming and
shouting, then silence as a body came out in a blanket." But that
same night all of the networks mentioned Saddam's claim that U.S.
soldiers had beaten him.
Despite the severity of the crimes, reporters fixated on the villain.
"Saddam seemed like he was still president," claimed NBC's Richard
Engel (Oct. 19). To CBS's Lara Logan, Saddam's disruptive shenanigans
were winning the day: "The appearance of credibility is what really
matters in this trial, and that's what's missing at the moment."
(Feb. 2)
The networks could have resisted the impulse to reward Saddam's
cynical strategy and focused on the evidence. Instead, they've played
right into his hands.
END Reprint of the March 20 Media Reality Check
- Brent Baker