How ashamed does this make you? Only 28 percent of Americans know that nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have been killed according to an opinion survey released yesterday. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey found that public awareness of developments in the Iraq war has dropped since last summer, as the news media have paid less attention to the conflict. Earlier surveys showed that about half of those asked about the death tally responded correctly. Do we have our priorities mixed up and flat out wrong or what?

The death of actor Heath Ledger is more of interest to the public according to the survey. 12 percent of those surveyed said they were most closely following the Ledger's death, while in contrast, only 6 percent said they were most closely following coverage of Iraq.

From the Washington Post:
Related Pew surveys have found that the number of news stories devoted to the war has sharply declined this year, along with professed public interest. "Coverage of the war has been virtually absent," said Pew survey research director Scott Keeter, totaling about 1 percent of the news hole between Feb. 17 and 23.

The Iraq-associated median for 2007, he said, was 15 percent of all news stories, with major spikes when President Bush announced a "surge" in forces in January of that year and when Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, testified before Congress in September.

"We try not to make any causal statements about the relationship between the absence of news and what the public knows," Keeter said. "But there's certainly a correlation between the two. People are not seeing news about fatalities, and there isn't much in the news about the war, whether it be military action or even political discussion related to it."