5:30 p.m. Update from Aly Colón below.
In newsrooms around the country this afternoon, editors and producers are scheduling the obligatory reaction stories for tonight's presidential speech about Iraq. With relatively few newsrooms assigning staff to cover the speech itself, most of the journalists involved in the coverage will be handling sidebars and features. Many usual suspects will be sought out for quotes on deadline, with predictable support and criticism emerging from all the partisan corners. Despite the life-and-death stakes of the topic, getting the attention of audiences will not be easy.

What to do?

Chip Scanlan suggests newsroom bosses do in person what we're trying to do online: get the staff together and brainstorm ways of producing coverage provocative enough to get the attention of readers and viewers.

Al Tompkins included valuable background and angles for the speech in this morning's edition of Al's Morning Meeting. I've pasted relevant sections below. Also below, Scott Libin offers several useful answers to specific questions.

Many attempts by journalists to hold the powerful accountable are accompanied by complaints of partisanship and bias. In his "White House Briefing" column on washingtonpost.com, Dan Froomkin makes no secret of his opinion of the Bush agenda. But the questions he includes in his suggested "things to keep an eye out for" in the speech include some good listening points for follow-ups.

What angles will your newsroom pursue tonight? Please add your ideas here, including links to points of view different than Froomkin's.

From Aly Colón:


Here's a Q&A with Scott Libin, a former TV news director who now teaches in Poynter leadership seminars:

POYNTER ONLINE: Cole Campbell, the editor and educator killed last week in a car crash, argued that "framing" is one of the most important roles journalists play in making sense of the news for readers and viewers and listeners. As journalists plan coverage of tonight's speech, what factors would you suggest they include as they frame the event for their audiences?

SCOTT LIBIN: NPR's Guy Raz had a great piece on "Morning Edition" today. The kind of context he provided -- history of past troop-level fluctuations, number of actual "trigger-pullers" compared with other non-fighting troops, etc. -- was very helpful. So were his clear definitions of common military terms: How many soldiers in a battalion? That sort of thing. Local journalists could take a similar approach to units within their own communities. News organizations report regularly on the comings and goings of units based in their areas. Tonight would be a great time to look at who's gone where, when, for how long, and so on. Clear graphics produced in advance of the speech would contribute greatly to understanding of the president's speech.

The timing of the speech at 9 p.m. EST presents interesting challenges for many newsrooms. Based on your own experience -- or approaches you've observed elsewhere -- what can newsrooms put in place in advance to ease the deadline crunch? Placing reporters with different groups of people to watch and react to the speech? What else?

Most of the speech's content is already known. Specifics on which 20,000 troops will be involved may not be available, but local journalists can analyze the types of troops from their own areas to determine if and how the president's plan could affect particular units. Also, prepare maps showing the areas the president says need more troops, in relation to where units from a news organization's own community are deployed.

In a fast-turnaround situation like this, what can journalists do to meet their obligation to hold the powerful accountable?

Retrieve records in advance to review how local representatives and senators have voted on war-related legislation since 2002/2003. Ask meaningful questions of those who respond to the speech, especially members of local congressional delegations, who typically release statements, uplink responses or make themselves available for comment: If you don't agree with the president's plan, what specifically would you do?

What planning can newsrooms do today for subsequent coverage growing out of the speech -- stories for Friday and the weekend?

Schedule live guests now to help analyze tonight's speech on tomorrow morning's newscasts. Find out what, if anything, will be going on at local military facilities from 5 to 7 a.m. for live shots. Prepare to pursue any emerging details on the impact, direct or indirect, of the president's plan on local units. If troops from another part of the country are deployed to Iraq, might local troops replace them at whatever duty they are leaving behind? Look for the ripple effect. Also, examine further the many things members of the military do besides fighting, both overseas and at home.

What groups or individuals might newsrooms look to for reaction to the speech that would get past the usual suspects?

High school guidance counselors, coaches and other mentors: How are they helping 17- and 18-year-olds respond to stepped-up recruitment efforts? Younger siblings of service members: What's it like to have a big brother or sister in the military these days?

Vietnam veterans: How does this war compare on the home front with the one they fought?


From Wednesday's Al's Morning Meeting:

Today, the president is expected to ask Congress to send a "surge" of 20,000 troops to Iraq. This morning's Washington Post has an interesting piece exploring the newest catchphrase, "surge," which is so vague it is politically perfect. After all, a "surge" sounds so temporary, powerful and even refreshing compared to a troop "buildup" or "reinforcement" or the phrase Speaker Nancy Pelosi used, "escalation."

Where would the troops for such a "surge" come from? It would mean earlier deployment for some troops. Some who are there would have to stay longer, and Reserves and National Guard troops would be called up again. The local implications of all of this are big.

The Los Angeles Times cites "top military officials" as saying:

[...] that such a buildup would require them to reverse Pentagon policy and send the Army's National Guard and Reserve units on lengthy second tours in Iraq.

Under Pentagon policy, Guard and Reserve units have been limited to 24 months of mobilization for the Iraq war. That means most Reserve units that already have been sent to Iraq are ineligible to return.

But the Joint Chiefs of Staff have concluded that a significant troop buildup would require the Pentagon to send Guard and Reserve units for additional yearlong tours.

Such an order probably would be controversial among the nation's governors -- who share authority over the Guard -- and could heighten concerns in Congress over the war and Bush's plans for a troop increase.

In addition, National Guard leaders were skeptical of calls for additional combat tours, which they fear could hurt recruiting and retention.

"If you have to sustain a surge long-term, you have to use the Guard and Reserve," said a Defense Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president had not unveiled his strategy shift.

[...] Any boost in combat forces will require some increase in Reserve support units, such as engineering or intelligence teams. But because of training requirements, National Guard infantry forces are unlikely to be used as part of the initial buildup. However, they would be needed later in the year to sustain a higher level of forces.

Some troops not slated to go to Iraq until late spring would go right away, and they would stay longer. Twelve-month tours would be lengthened to 15 months. The Army had a goal of allowing soldiers to be home for two years before being redeployed. That has already turned into 12 months for some.

The Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colo., says:

"What's been proposed is that (Army) brigades that were getting ready to go over there in the spring, from March to June, should go over there now, and that everybody else would get moved up a little bit," said John Pike, director of the research group globalsecurity.org.

In addition, Army troops might remain in Iraq for 15-month tours instead of 12 months, and Marines probably would extend their six-month tours to 12 or 15 months, Pike said.

The changes were outlined in a surge plan proposed last month by Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, Pike said.

The surge also could require expansion of the Army by four more brigades (about 3,500 soldiers each), or 14,000 soldiers, and increased use of National Guard troops to sustain higher troop levels in Iraq.

All of the changes expose the problem that has prompted warnings from some military observers that Army and Marine force levels are currently too small to escalate troop numbers in Iraq or sustain such an escalation.

Of course, rural areas will feel the surge the most because rural areas have a higher death rate in the war.

The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle says:

The death rate per million population aged 18 to 54 was 60 percent higher for soldiers from rural areas than those from urban and suburban areas, the study [by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire] said.

The higher rate is linked to higher enlistment in rural areas due to diminished job opportunities, the study said.

The numbers also mean that the war is felt deeply in rural parts of the country.

Dee Davis, president of the Kentucky-based Center for Rural Strategies, said a pre-election poll by his organization found that three-fourths of respondents in rural communities knew someone fighting in the Middle East.

"For a lot of small towns and rural communities, the war's not abstract," he said. "In rural America, people know who's actually fighting."

The Carsey Institute study says [PDF]:

In addition to Vermont and Delaware, Oregon, Nebraska and Arizona also lost a highly disproportionate number of service men and women from rural areas.

Members of Military Families Speak Out, an organization of more than 3,100 military families against the Iraq war, are telling reporters they're willing to comment on President Bush's new plan for Iraq. The group says "many of these families expect that their loved ones can or will be affected by any escalation in troop strength in Iraq, either because they will be extended beyond their scheduled return date or because they will be deployed early."