This article by NYT media writer Katharine Q. Seelye explores why 2,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq seemed to resonate much more than the first 1,000 did.

An excerpt:

Other papers, too, that had dutifully acknowledged the first 1,000 dead seemed to give greater emotional weight to the loss of the second 1,000. Single columns gave way to feature layouts. Roll calls of names were supplemented with pictures, ages and hometowns. Elaborate graphics and maps charted the who, when, where and how. Writers wrestled with the why.

"Military toll tops 1,000," The Boston Globe's headline reported last time. For the second 1,000, the approach was more personal: "Grieving families find little peace."

Television - where a new survey found that coverage of the war has diminished - also seemed to give fuller expression last week to the 2,000 mark than it had to the 1,000.

How to explain the difference? Highlighting deaths during war can be perceived as a political statement, as Lincoln learned when he was accused of playing on people's emotions with the Gettysburg Address. Were editors last week trying to compensate for having ignored Iraq lately? Was it a reaction to the growing scale of casualties, though the numbers are still small by the standards of other wars? Or was it implicit criticism of the war itself?

"The whole mood of the country has changed," said Ted Koppel, the anchor of ABC's "Nightline." Mr. Koppel drew intense criticism in April 2004 - a year after President Bush declared the end of major combat in Iraq - when he read the names of the 721 men and women killed since the start of the war in March 2003.

The Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the country's largest owners of local television stations, refused to run the program on its ABC affiliates, saying it was antiwar propaganda that would undermine the American effort abroad.

Last week, Sinclair executives, through a representative, declined to comment on the 2,000th death or the widespread coverage it received.

At the 1,000 mark, many still saw the war as having a clear purpose and goal. Now polls show that a majority of Americans think it was wrong to invade Iraq in the first place and do not see a good way out.

The 2,000 mark also came as the war and other problems have left Mr. Bush at the nadir of his popularity. Editors and media specialists said these factors helped make the press a little more sure-footed as it paused last week to examine the war and its human costs.

An interesting finding is that the U.S. TV networks, if not the entire media, are covering the war less:

During the last year, the three major networks devoted only about half the time to combat in Iraq that they did during the previous year and a half, according to Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the Tyndall Report, which monitors network news.

From March 20, 2003, to Sept. 7, 2004, the networks devoted 2,342 minutes to combat coverage on their nightly newscasts, he said. (Combat coverage, which excluded reports on rebuilding and weapons of mass destruction, accounted for 57 percent of all Iraq stories, he said.)

But from Sept. 7, 2004, through Oct. 21, 2005, a few days shy of the 2,000th death, the networks ran 1,215 minutes of combat coverage.