NPR's coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

**I would like to preface my examination of NPR's coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan wars with a comment about the NPR website. While NPR is traditionally a radio show, I feel that they have very seamlessly entered the web atmosphere, creating an extremely effective and user-friendly website. When I started researching stories about the wars, I was able to go directly to "Iraq" and "Afghanistan" pages that compile recent stories heard on air, news articles from the Associated Press and NPR, a search engine to navigate the page, authors interviews and a link to blogs about the topic. My favorite aspect was the link that created a pre-assembled list of NPR stories heard on air pertaining to that particular topic. All-in-all, when viewing NPR's website, it is hard to tell if radio innately has the qualities to be integrated into the web or if NPR just figured it out on their own.**


When searching "iraq war" in recent All Things Considered heard-on-air stories, the results show an interesting mix of stories. Starting at March 1, 2010, one of NPR's and the nations most largely tuned in news outlets has reported on aspects of the Iraq war ranging from "Is the Bible more violent than the Quran", stories about The Hurt Locker, an article reporting on the video released by Anwar al-Alwaki that was broadcasted recently on CNN, and a interview with former U.N. Ambassador to Iraq. In total, All Things Considered has mentioned the Iraq war in roughly 10 stories this month. 


NPR has one section on their website featuring a special series that Weekend Edition did called, "Weekend Edition Explores The Impact of War". This section is dedicated to exploring the impact of war on American families and service members. This series aired November 7, 2009 and remained throughout the month. 


However, it seems that despite these pages that contain really interesting features, radio is having trouble translating the constant updates into the web-world of radio. When you look at CNN.com or CNN broadcast, the update bar informs you of things that are going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. While watching the health care debate two days ago, it was hard not to think about all the other issues going on abroad as headlines such as, "four killed in suicide bombing in Iraq" scrolled beneath. While one can subscribe to the update feature of NPR's website, it seems to lack the immediacy of the infamous reports we heard from Murrow during WWII. Rather than putting you in the war, NPR does not seem to be focusing on letting you hear the air raids, but rather see how the effects and consequences of war permeate into our culture. 


I do not mean to bash NPR's coverage. There certainly are updates, just the feature stories that really utilize the format of radio, don't seem to have the immediacy of the infamous Murrow broadcast during the London air raids or even the recent story we heard in class from the reporter in Haiti who saw the young boy who was severely injured. 


NPR also has the advantage of being able to produce longer stories on programs such as Talk of the Nation. Talk of the Nation recently did a story entitled, "Seven Year In, Assessing the Value of the Iraq War". This story was a long debate on March 23, 2010 that was between David Corn of Mother Jones and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. The story provided context and showed polarized views regarding the role of the U.S. in war. I was very happy to see that NPR was doing a feature on why we have been in the war so long, the progress that has or has not been made, and the effect war has had on both our country and Iraq. The story also showed how radio, and interviews, can raise questions that flirt with the lines of objectivity. At one point, Mr. Rubin said:


"You're assuming a maliciousness and a desire to lie. What we have under the Clinton administration and under the Bush administration was a Central Intelligence Agency which by and large was getting it wrong.

"We know that from a number of reasons, and yet we budget them $40 billion, and we haven't really had a serious investigation into what went wrong.

"I'm not going to get into all the conspiracy theories about the Office of Special Plans and nought(ph). It isn't I mean, historians will debate this once the documents fully become clear, but ultimately we had a few decisions.

"One was the decision to go to war. The second was the decision to aim for a democracy, and the third was, frankly, the complete lack of plans and consensus as to whether we would have an occupation and then how that occupation would proceed". 


This story showed NPR raising some important and heavy questions about the continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, a story that I found effective and important for the American public. 


As I continue to examine NPR's coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan war, I want to look at how the medium is effectively utilized and what shows/programs are featuring stories, like Murrow's, on the war. My personal advice would be updates followed by interviews with people affected on various levels, be it a policy maker, a veteran, a historian, ecc.