Centerfield

Clearly, if Douglas Wood had been an attractive white female American instead of a fat middle-aged foreigner, this would have been front page for days plus made-for-tv-movie before the end of the month.

At least he's a white, English speaking foreigner who lives in California. If the guy had been Japanese, the hostage rescue would have been half a paragraph.

And note the headlines of the first WashPost article as shown online:

BIG HEADLINE: Australian Hostage Is Rescued in Baghdad
SMALL SUB-HEAD: Dozens of Iraqis Killed at Mess Hall

Do those headlines reflect the bias of the media, or the bias of the American readership?

It is stories like this that make it increasingly difficult to defend "mainstream media."

This is a really good example of the type of media bias that troubles me most. It's not the sort of coverage slanted due to political bias, but rather by the media's own drives, which are in part driven by what audiences respond to...

It drives me nuts when plane crash coverage transitions quickly to "here are the people from New England that died, now let's intrude upon their grief..."

This guy is an unattractive Australian, so who cares? To figure out our ratings, we need the foreign rescue conversion chart...

That the media declined to cover this story almost across the board is good evidence. I hesitate to draw much conclusion from the identities of the few outlets that provided token coverage.

jdeer165:

In your opinion, what did the mainstream media do wrong with this story, and why?

There's obviously a bias towards attractive white women in the media. Just look at Elizabeth Smart, Lacy Peterson, Lori Hatchett, the current girl in Aruba. Little white boys attract attention, but if they are teenagers, just not that interesting... African-Americans don't stand a chance.

It's blatant bias. But, then again, just look at who happens to be reporting it to us? A bunch of attractive white reporters and anchors. Hmmmmm....

This quote caught my eye:

Wood's decision coincided with a warning from Kayser Trad -- a spokesman for Australian Muslim leader Sheikh Taj al-Din-al-Hilali who traveled to Baghdad to help free Wood -- that Wood could be killed for insulting his captors.

Bad Mr Wood.

That would be the same al-Din-al-Hilali who lied about the fate of the two Iraqi prisoners, and had nothing to do with Wood's rescue.

Attractive white women attract attention walking down the street, too. This bias is not just the media's, it society's at large. We're looking in the mirror with disgust, or at least at all the people in our midst.

Well duh, Mickael Jackson was still in the news. Or was it Tom Cruise or the Paris Hilton ad...
Who can be bothered with talking about how Iraq?

In truth the bias is towards marketing a product.
That's why the first 2 minutes of your national news was devoted to Michael Jackson for weeks on end instead of the things that really matter.

Think of it as corporatist bias.

Despite my earlier comments, I actually think the WashPost and NYTimes handled the Wood story appropriately. It was worth reporting -- it's relevant to the large issues in the world as well as a good human interest story. And good news is nice. But a big-splash-on-the-front page, multiple-follow-up treatment would have been overkill of one guy's story.

Still, I feel very weird about the headline basically being ONE GUY FREED! (Also, 30 people die)

I would have liked to see his comments reported in the NYT. Not front page, but reported.

But I didn't expect it, and the NYT and WashTimes both did exactly what I expected them to do. They followed up (or not) consistent with their editorial bias. NYT ignored Wood's comments on policy altogether, WashTimes played 'em front-page. (MHO--they deserved about page 6.) Reuters fell down on the job by going out of their way to kiss poseur al-Din-al-Hilali's behind and pass on his vague threats, AP & WaPo reported it fairly straight, and the French played it quite upfront. WaPo ran a little bit weak but not too bad--no print followup but solid followup placement in the Web portal.

To me the real loser of the bunch was Reuters. I saw what I expected from NYT and WT. And the big surprise was AFP's fairly even-handed treatment. Slapped me in my own biased perceptions. Good for them.

This story will be back in the news, not for Wood's opinions or the media treatment, but just as a human-interest story. The person who apparently had the most to do with Wood's rescue was a fellow hostage, a Swede, who was released two weeks before the raid. He cooperated with coalition and Iraqi authorities, and probably provided the info that led to the raid. He described their captors as Sunni criminals interested only in ransom, who executed eight people in front of them when they couldn't come up with money.

Which comments are you referring to?

I think you're referring to the video that Woods was forced to make while in captivity. If so, I think it was right for the NYTimes and WashPost to refuse to report the comments -- otherwise, they're giving the terrorists what they want, and possibly encouraging more kidnappings.

Tully:

In my first comment above -- did I completely miss the point of your post? I didn't mean to hijack the thread.

No I'm referring to his comments when he was released, apologizing to John Howard and George Bush for the comments he made in that video with guns pointed at his head. And:

"I actually believe that I am proof positive that the current policy of training the Iraqi army...works because it was Iraqis that got me out." --Douglas Wood

Which is not exactly encouraging for the thugs who kidnapped him, or for the insurgents.

Oh yeah, and the "arseholes" comment, and the observations about it not being al-Qaeda who kidnapped him. I liked those. Genuine. Earthy.

Not quite completely--the commercial bias is always there, and worth noting. But if you read through all six stories (two of which are the same copy) then your patience is to be applauded. I didn't want to be specific--I wanted to see what others saw.

It was the "policy" quote from Wood that I believe drove WashTimes to give it a front-page placement, and NYT to ignore it. But it was just part of the story, and in either pushing it or ignoring it the rest of the story gets missed. Like al-Din-al-Hilali's attempts to grab credit, and then vaguely threaten Wood. Or the "non-insurgent" nature of the kidnappers, which is in the followups coming out today.