You gotta love the media.

As soon as the first inkling of a major war between Israel and Hamas, the daily feeds of the war between the Ukraine and Russia all but disappeared.

The only mention I’ve seen concerning the Ukrainian fight was in money tied to an entire funding package suggested by President Biden for Israel and the once oft-mentioned war in Ukraine.

Now, either the war in Ukraine is over and nobody covered it, or somehow the war in Israel is more important to the general public.

This says something about media coverage overall.

People are still dying every day in the Ukraine. Battlefield news is still happening in the bloody back and forth land grabs, but how would we know?

This does not bode well for the media as it becomes obvious news coverage and reporters are programmed towards ratings. CNN does not even pretend to be a global source of news, calling and listings most of their 24 hour news cycle...Israel War.

The same can be said of all the major news organizations, including the highly regarded BBC news. All the Sunday news interview shows are the Israel War and who different can we find somebody, anybody on a different take of the Mid East crisis.

Luckily, the Republican snafu in Washington and the Trump trials and tribulations gives us a break in the War in Israel.

I have to really dig to find anything not dealing with Israel/Hamas coverage, but here are a few early week dispatches:

From the Independent...In a story by Alexander Butler and Maira Butt

"The Kremlin has dismissed the claim Vladimir Putin is unwell as an “absurd hoax” and said “everything is fine” with the dictator.

“This belongs to the category of absurd information hoaxes that a whole series of media discuss with enviable tenacity. This evokes nothing but a smile,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

On Sunday, posts emerged on the Telegram messaging app claiming Putin had suffered a cardiac arrest. The channel said Putin was “very ill” and unlikely to live until the end of autumn, with all official meetings conducted by a body double.

It comes after Ukraine launched an “underwater sabotage” attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet near Sevastopol, Crimea, according to Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of the region.

Soon after, Russia’s defense ministry said it had destroyed three unmanned Ukrainian boats in the Black Sea off the Crimean peninsula.

“Anti-sabotage missiles and bombs hit the area where the unmanned boats were detected,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has pushed more troops to the frontline in Avdiivka, Ukraine, despite a failing offensive which has incurred heavy losses."

Even Al Jazeera, the news service originating from the Arab region, claiming to be a globally oriented media service, takes breaks from the Israel/Hamas war to report other world news. Yeah, they too have their problems in the fairness category, but at least they’re trying.

Yes, we (The Times) also have news on the Israel/Hamas conflict, but attempt to balance coverage with other stories, other parts of the world. Yes, there is still concerning news in South America, Russia, China, Ukraine, etc.

*****

As you may have noticed, we are squeezing as much news as possible in this and the previous several weeks papers.

This edition of the Times is one of the largest number of pages we ever produced. This is due to the local political races and the ad buying frenzy by candidates.

We also try and get in every Letter to the Editor from all factions, which takes up even more precious space. No need to worry, it will be all over in two weeks and then back to normal. (?)