The "Coverage of News Coverage" of the Third Gulf War was the subject of an empirical research project. A critical observation of war coverage was reconstructed through quantitative and qualitative analyses of the media. The study, originally created in the context of the Media Critique Project, was promoted to an independent project with a new accent on the problem and with an enhancement of the empirical basis, using additional German and American print media. In this context, the possible instrumentality of media critique as a vehicle of bias for or against US politics in the Third Gulf War came to the fore.
It was possible to show that the left wing liberal and right wing conservative media spectrum focused their critical views on the different warring parties and evaluated their efforts with varying severity. While the conservative print media accused its left wing liberal competition of being anti-American, the left wing liberal print media criticised the uncritical, pro-American coverage in the conservative spectrum. The US media themselves only took a critical look at their performance months after the war ended.
Taking a broader view, an issue of M&K explored the relationship between media and politics during wartime. Guest publishers of the issue Christiane Eilders and Lutz M. Hagen included an update of the actual state of affairs of current research as a preface to the issue. The issue included articles about the presentation and effects of war coverage, as well as articles about relevant actors in war communication.
