Summertime and the living is easy

Project for Excellence in Journalism news coverage index June 17-22:

At the same time, the Iraq policy debate—the Washington-based battle over war strategy—generated only 1% of last week’s coverage and failed to make the top-10 story list. Those findings are indicative of a trend in recent weeks in which coverage of the political debate over the war has diminished substantially.

For the first three months of this year, PEJ found that the policy debate was the leading news subject by a large margin, accounting for 12% of all the coverage. (The next biggest story was the 2008 campaign at 7%.) But on May 24, after a lengthy political showdown, Congress approved war funding without including troop withdrawal timetables. Since then—in the period from May 27-June 22—the policy debate has been the sixth-biggest story attracting 3% of the coverage. This suggests that the May 24 vote was viewed as a major victory for President Bush over the Democratic-led Congress that, temporarily, brought some kind of resolution to the policy fight.

It's a good thing the Dems folded and agreed September, SEPTEMBER, SEPTEMBER would be when they'll do something about that endless, pointless war. Apparently it's not like anyone cares. You know, except all those dead people. And the people those dead people knew. No one except them!