Earlier this week, the New York Times clocked the CBS evening news's total coverage of Iraq in 2008 at a total of 51 minutes. That's slightly less than 2 minutes per week. ABC World News clocked in at 55 minutes so far, edging them just over 2 minutes per week.
The war's proponents are claiming that the good news from Iraq isn't making it here -- its detractors (like me) claim the bad news isn't, and we're both right. Our song about the Iraq media blackout is pretty short, but once you get past the second chorus you will have spent more time listening to it than two of the major networks spent discussing the war this week.
Click the player below to hear "Waiting for the Blackout to End".
Waiting for the Blackout to End
It takes just a couple of minutes
It's just about that long
To boil a pot of water
Or to play a 4 chord song
So if you think that there's been improvement
Or it's a mess that spirals on
It takes more than a couple a minutes
To ascertain what's going on
When there's 150,000 bodies
And 300,000 boots
And a billion some odd dollars
Going to high-priced substitutes
It don't matter if they find it boring
Or if it makes your product flat
If you only do a couple of minutes
You owe much more than that
There's weather coming out on the ones and the traffic on the tens
Everything that falls in between well, that all depends
'Cause it don't hold no one's attention, like it used to do back then
That's why every week, we're down to a couple of minutes
While we're waiting for the blackout to end
When there isn't blood or fire
In the signals through the air
I'll just have to take your word for it
That there isn't over there
So you can say that the good news don't make it through
But it's tough to call
Cause when I only see a couple of minutes
I can't see that much at all
So dice it down into tiny pieces I, can comprehend
For a living room so sick and tired of "oh, not that again"
Point those eyeballs downward as the line on the graph descends
Until every week, we're down to a couple minutes
While we're waiting for the blackout to end
There's weather on the ones and traffic on the tens
But when it comes to bloodsher, no ain't no time to spend
'Cause it don't hold no ones attention, like it used to do back then
And that's why every week we're down to a couple of minutes
While we're waiting for the blackout to end