The surge in media coverage of the Iraq war, that is. I love this part of the NY Times piece on how CBS has strategically redeployed their journalists to a secure location where they’re available to cover a story if needed:

Paul Friedman, a senior vice president at CBS News, said the news division does not get reports from Iraq on television “with enough frequency to justify keeping a very, very large bureau in Baghdad.” He said CBS correspondents can “get in there very quickly when a story merits it.”

And we wouldn’t want to ruin the dinner party, now would we?

On “The Daily Show,” Ms. Logan echoed the comments of other journalists when she said that many Americans seem uninterested in the wars now. Mr. (Terry) McCarthy (ABC News correspondent in Baghdad) said that when he is in the United States, bringing up Baghdad at a dinner party “is like a conversation killer.”

Says a lot about the people at the parties that Terry McCarthy goes to that they have no interest in hearing about the facts in Iraq from someone who was actually there.

In case anyone was wondering, a full withdrawal from Iraq is anticipated later this year:

Journalists at all three American television networks with evening newscasts expressed worries that their news organizations would withdraw from the Iraqi capital after the November presidential election. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity in order to avoid offending their employers.