Coverage of the 2003 War in Iraq in The New York Times

Section: Foreign Journalism

This paper analyzes the articles in The New York Times newspaper dealing with the 2003 war in Iraq, more specifically, with the first month of the operation Iraqi Freedom. The author used the classical variety of general content analysis. In order to build the set of tools, the author defined some categories for conducting content analysis of the empirical materials from The New York Times quality newspaper covering the 2003 war in Iraq: thematic scope of the materials, their tone, genres, key figures, contributors, geography and the like. The object of the study is the articles published in The New York Times during one month from the start of the operation Iraqi Freedom (March 20 — April 20, 2003). The selected time period corresponds to the greatest flow of articles on the US war against Iraq, which make it possible to trace the specific features of covering foreign policy conflicts. From March 20 to April 20, 2003, 2484 articles on Iraq were published on the website ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index. Out of these the author analyzed 594 ones. Most of the materials are anti-war, they contain information easily understood by a wide audience. About one third of the materials are accompanied by photographs, maps and diagrams. The key figures are Iraqi President, US President, famous politicians as well as Private Jessica Lynch and the story of her rescue.

DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.141162

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