Maybe if everybody stops talking about it

People will forget about it before they vote....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. media reporting of the war in Iraq fell sharply in the second quarter of 2007, largely due to a drop in coverage of the Washington-based policy debate, a study released Monday said.

Taken together, the war's three major story lines -- the U.S. policy debate, events in Iraq and their impact on the U.S. homefront -- slipped roughly a third, to 15 percent of an index of total news coverage, down from 22 percent in the first three months of the year.

The study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism examined 18,010 stories that appeared between April 1 and June 29. Its "News Coverage Index" encompasses 48 outlets, including newspapers, radio, online, cable and network television.

The project is a research group studying and evaluating press performance. It describes itself as nonpartisan, nonideological and nonpolitical. The index is designed as an audit of a broad cross-section of U.S. news media.