Over at the Beachwood Reporter, Steve Rhodes flags something I missed (because Sundays I try to avoid the computer*): an elegiac piece by Tribune Middle East correspondent Liz Sly about the Iraqis who work with them as stringers, guides, translators, and the like; it ends with one Iraqi’s tally of everyone he or she knows who’s died in the war. I am a shut-in, so take it with a grain of salt, but a similarly long list for me would account for most of the people I know.
*Newspapers often save behind-the-news stories like these for Sundays, stories that give meaning to the news they report during the week. This has long made sense, since Sunday is the biggest day for readership, the day when people sit back with a cup of coffee and ponder the week’s happenings. And clip coupons, but you get the idea.
As readership shifts to the Web, it might be a good idea to shift publication of this kind of thing to weekdays during work hours, since that’s now when people read the news. Sometimes I wonder if the beef media organizations get for their coverage of the war and similarly complex issues should have less to do with the raw coverage itself, which is often quite good, and more to do with the presentation/emphasis/timing/etc. Just a suggestion.