Invasion News Fits on Front Page More When an Enemy Does the Invading

The New York Times’ slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print” has appeared on the paper’s front page since 1897. But a comparison of Times coverage of the 2022 Ukraine War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq shows that the same kinds of news don’t always fit on the front page.

FAIR examined front pages of the New York Times between April 1 and April 30, 2022, and compared them to those from May 1 to May 31, 2003. The dates represent the second full calendar months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the US invasion of Iraq, respectively—major armed conflicts involving major world powers illegally invading  smaller countries.

In April 2022, there were a total of 179 stories on the Times‘ front page, and  79 (44%) concerned the Ukraine invasion. All but three were located at  the top of the page (i.e., with no articles above them), where editors put the stories they consider to be the most important of the day. Fully 75% of all top-of-the-page stories were about the Ukraine war. Not a single day went by without a Ukraine story being published on the top of the page, and on 14 different days only stories about Ukraine were published on the top of the front page.