This is one fascinating analysis of the US coverage of Iraq news. Well worth the read....
http://www.fair.org/extra/0403/iraq-study.htmlsnip:
<Despite allegations that the media were favoring bad news in Iraq, the study found that while attacks against coalition forces and bombings were reported almost daily, bigger pieces of bad news were virtually ignored or greatly downplayed.
Ten sources talked about civilian casualties and possible human rights violations by coalition troops. Six of these were in one CBS Evening News segment (10/21/03) covering a Human Rights Watch report on abuses of civilians released that day. Despite Human Rights Watch's estimate that "U.S. soldiers killed 94 civilians between May 1 and September 30, 2003, in legally questionable circumstances," ABC and NBC did not find the report worth mentioning. The other four sources discussing civilian casualties and human rights issues appeared in another CBS Evening News piece (10/30/03), on U.S. and British civilians who were shot at by coalition soldiers.
According to a Stars & Stripes (10/15/03) poll that interviewed almost 2,000 U.S. ground troops in Iraq, 49 percent said that their unit's morale was "low" or "very low." This subject of morale was discussed in six stories by 13 current and former military officials--12 percent of military sources in the study. By comparison, 75 percent of military sources discussed tactics and details about missions and attacks. >