Modern-Day Mass Media: How the Few Decide for the Whole

In October 2003, the British humanitarian organization Christian Aid released a report that $4 billion in Iraqi funds, which had been earmarked for reconstruction of the country, had disappeared. The Coalition Provision Authority (CPA), the U.S. controlled body that ruled Iraq at the time, was relegated with handling that money. "An examination of financial records between June 2003 and October 2004 showed poor bookkeeping, and investigators "found indicators of potential fraud," the report said" (Borenstein, Online). At the time, the CPA vigorously denied the accusations (Millions, Online). By June 2004, the amount of money gone missing had more than doubled from four to almost nine billion dollars.

This story was reported with minimal coverage when the announcement was first released. As the investigation progressed, the story of the missing billions was reported several times during the summer months of 2004 and again in January 2005. However, it was never given prominence in any news medium. The writers at Faithful Progressive called it the "biggest and single most under-reported story of the last year" Millions, Online). A comment on the blog said it best: "The report that documented Christian Aid's concerns was released on the day of the Iraq elections and this story kind of got lost" (Millions, Online).
The average American has no idea that this egregious mishandling of so much money ever occurred. This is just one example of a dangerous trend in today's major news media: stories are being reported upon as deemed "newsworthy" by media executives rather than for their value as actual news. It seems that by today's standards, stories that are entertaining, rather than informing, are given more attention by the media (Radford, 189).