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For the third straight weekday, Iraq was Story of the Day. This time a mass kidnapping of bureaucrats from the Education Ministry in downtown Baghdad was the lead on all three newscasts. Unfortunately (for the networks) late-breaking developments undercut their headlines. As they went on air, word filtered out that fortunately (for the hostages) most had been released.

CBS focused on the education angle: Elizabeth Palmer in Baghdad combined her kidnap coverage with campus protests at Baghdad University against anti-academic violence and the mass emigration by professors in response. Katie Couric interviewed Zainab al-Suwaij of the American Islamic Congress: this brain drain, she explained, was caused by "Taliban-type" opposition to intellectuals. NBC's Tom Aspell also reported that academics are seen as "too liberal" nowadays in Baghdad.

ABC's Terry McCarthy chose the political angle in reporting the kidnapping. The Education Ministry is run by Sunnis and the Interior Ministry is run by Shiites. The kidnappers wore hard-to-obtain blue camouflage uniforms of police commandos, so McCarthy suspected an inside job. NBC's Richard Engel (at the end of the Aspell package) argued that the party that runs the Education Ministry is linked to Sunni supporters of al-Qaeda--not what one would call "too liberal."

Andrew Tyndall 11/16/06 3:10:33 pm

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