Journalism's top ten

NYU's journalism institute has listed its ten favorite stories of the decade. The New York Times' coverage of the 9/11 attack comes in first. The Times also makes the list for its reporting on the Afghanistan war and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx is the second pick.

This American Life's explanation of the subprime mortgage crisis, "The Giant Pool of Money," is in fourth place, with Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side" in sixth. The Times-Picayune gets eight place for its detailed coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

The full list is here.

Canadian journalist killed in Afghanistan

Canadian journalist Michelle Lang, a 34-year-old reporter at the Calgary Herald, was killed Wednesday along with four soldiers when a roadside bomb hit the armored vehicle they were traveling in:

She is the first Canadian journalist to die in the Afghan war since Canada joined the international mission in 2002, and is believed to be the first Herald reporter ever killed on the job in the paper’s 126-year history.

She was on a six-week assignment in Afghanistan.

Commandos free NYT journalist

Military commandos freed a New York Times reporter held captive for four days by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Stephen Farrell and his interpreter, Sultan Munadi, were captured on Saturday while reporting on a NATO airstrike near Kunduz that killed upwards of 90 people. Munadi was killed during the rescue.

As happened when reporter David Rohde was captured, the New York Times kept quiet about the journalists; abduction.

From the NYT:

“We feared that media attention would raise the temperature and increase the risk to the captives,” said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times. “We’re overjoyed that Steve is free, but deeply saddened that his freedom came at such a cost. We are doing all we can to learn the details of what happened. Our hearts go out to Sultan’s family.”

Iraq, uncovered

The Project for Excellence in Journalism did a study back in May that found coverage of the Iraq war accounted for only three percent of what American newspapers and broadcasters produced in the first months of 2008.

Now the New York Times reports that the major networks have "quietly" decided to stop sending full-time reporters to Iraq. From the story:

In Baghdad, ABC, CBS and NBC still maintain skeleton bureaus in heavily fortified compounds. Correspondents rotate in and out when stories warrant, and with producers and Iraqi employees remaining in Baghdad, the networks can still react to breaking news. But employees who are familiar with the staffing pressures of the networks say the bureaus are a shadow of what they used to be. Some of the offices have only one Western staff member.

The staff cuts appear to be the latest evidence of budget pressures at the networks. And those pressures are not unique to television: many newspapers and magazines have also curtailed their presence in Baghdad. As a consequence, the war is gradually fading from television screens, newspapers and, some worry, the consciousness of the American public.

As network and cable news outlets cut back in one war zone, there has been no corresponding increase in coverage of our other war zone - the one that's supposed to be the real frontline in the war on terror. Until CNN recently sent a full-time reporter to Afghanistan, no major television or cable news outlet had a full-time bureau there.

(via Romensko)