Meanwhile, hard numbers bear out anecdotal evidence of a prettification of the war. A study by George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs, which examined 600 hours of coverage on CNN, FOX News Channel and ABC from the start of the war on March 20 to the fall of Baghdad on April 9, found that only 13.5 percent of the 1,710 stories analyzed included any shots of dead or wounded coalition soldiers, Iraqi soldiers or civilians. And fewer than 4 percent of the 5,087 individual shots of either battles or casualties that were analyzed showed dead soldiers or civilians.

"Americans see a bloodless, victimless war, unless when Americans die, and then we don't see any pictures at all," adds As'ad AbuKhalil, author of "Bin Laden, Islam, and America's New 'War on Terrorism.'" "Patriotism really challenges the journalism standards we've seen," says AbuKhalil, an expert on Arab media who teaches politics at California State University at Stanislaus.

Similarly, a study last year by FAIR, the liberal media watchdog group, analyzed 319 on-camera sources who appeared in stories about Iraq on the nightly network newscasts -- "ABC World News Tonight," "CBS Evening News" and "NBC Nightly News" -- during October 2003. It found that of the 319 sources, 244, or 76 percent, were current or former government or military officials.

"There seems to be an underlying feeling that big media is in bed with the government and have decided on the version of the war you'll see," says MaryAnne Golon, picture editor at Time magazine. "I don't think it applies to Time; we've run some tough images [of the war] in the magazine. But I've heard that criticism over and over."

Many observers note that the war is being portrayed in drastically different ways by the international press, where disturbing war images are often the norm. "It's considerably easier to get stronger images published in the European press," notes Howe. In fact, it was the Spanish television station Telecinco -- not Arab media -- that aired the grisliest images from Fallujah, complete with unaltered video of the charred corpses being dragged through the streets. "Europe has a collective consciousness about its own wars, and therefore there's a greater understanding of the reality of war," says Howe.

Regardless of their political leaning, European press outfits do a better job of painting a more complete picture of the situation in Iraq, and of the mounting hurdles the United States faces, such as its diplomatic collapse in the region, says John MacArthur, author of "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War": "One gets a much better sense of what's going on in Iraq by reading the center-right Financial Times of London than reading the New York Times or the Washington Post or the San Francisco Chronicle." Europeans often get their war news faster as well. Last Friday the Guardian in London ran a front-page photo of an abused Iraqi prisoner -- a full day before U.S. dailies ran the story or touched the image.

American journalists dismiss the charge of sanitized, or one-sided, war coverage. "To suggest we have ignored the tragedy of death is incorrect," says Baron at the Globe. "In terms of the fighting, we're showing some pretty powerful stuff," says Marcy McGinnis, senior vice president of news coverage for CBS News. "The other night on the 'Evening News' we showed soldiers carrying a wounded body out on a door, using it as stretcher. If I were a mother who had a son over there, I'd be having a heart attack. I don't think viewers are getting a sanitized version of the war. I think they're seeing some pretty horrible images -- and that's being reflected in the recent poll results" that indicate a steady decline in support for the war.

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