Ukraine war disappears from news coverage, interest declines noticeably as Gaza conflict intensifies

2023.11.18 Sat posted at 17:00 JST

（ＣＮＮ） When was the last time you saw footage broadcast from Ukraine on TV news? Probably quite a while ago.

With the war in the Middle East heating up, the protracted war in Eastern Europe has almost taken a backseat in media coverage. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal operations against Ukraine have received significantly less attention from the media than before the outbreak of the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

According to video subtitle data analyzed online and on TV by the GDELT project, which tracks media coverage around the world, cable TV coverage of the Ukraine war was a terrorist attack carried out by the Islamic group Hamas in southern Israel on the 7th of last month. Since then, it has decreased dramatically.

Before the Israel-Hamas war, fighting in Ukraine accounted for about 8% of CNN’s television coverage, but after the Hamas raid, the proportion has dropped to less than 1%.

At the time, when the selection process for the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was chaotic, there was a noticeable increase in mentions of Ukraine in the media, but the main focus remained on U.S. financial aid to the country; It was not the situation of the war.

Data provided by Internet analytics firm ComScore shows a similar trend occurring online. The findings suggest that discussion of the Ukraine war on social media has significantly decreased since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict. However, overall interest in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine appears to have waned over the past few months.

In addition to the situation in the Middle East, U.S. media outlets have been busy reporting on several other important topics in recent weeks. These include the chaos in Congress, former President Trump’s trial, and the mass shooting in Maine.

The current decline in interest in Ukraine is nothing but a boon for Mr. Putin.

Paul Kolbe, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School in the US and a 25-year veteran of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), told reporters that He said Putin must be “happy” that the war would divert U.S. attention from Russia. He added that in the midst of all this, Russia “continues to carry out attacks targeting Ukrainian cities and civilians.”

Kolbe also said that while the West has reduced coverage of the war in Ukraine, Russia is waging its own information war to spread falsehoods and misinformation. He expressed his view that Mr. Putin’s strategy is to exhaust the West’s patience and support and cause division within the United States and among NATO members.

According to Kolbe, Putin is using the media to try to portray Ukraine as a divided and corrupt state. Mr. Putin’s strategy is said to be centered on portraying Ukraine as a puppet of the United States and NATO.