Stephen Soldz has a nice summary of the congressional briefing on the Lancet study:
Les Roberts again made the point that their data implies that the majority of deaths in Iraq are from violence, whereas alternative accounts from Iraq Body Count, the Brookings Institution, or the Iraq Ministry of Health imply that only a small percentage, perhaps 10%, of deaths in Iraq are from violence. He again, as he has done since the study came out in early October, has called upon the press to visit graveyards and ask if the majority of deaths is from nonviolent or violent causes. Roberts again called, as these authors did after their 2004 study, for another research group to investigate the Iraqi mortality rate and confirm or invalidate the Lancet study. It is disturbing that, in the two years between theses researchers' 2004 and 2006 studies, no other group did attempt such a replication. Given the numbers of surveys conducted in Iraq on other controversial issues, such as attitudes toward attacks on Coalition troops, it should he relatively easy for this study to be replicated. Perhaps all of us, whatever our evaluation of this study, can echo these calls to the press and to other survey researchers.
You can watch the briefing here. (RealVideo format only.)
Update: Juan Cole has posted a transcript of the hearing.
1h43m long. Not much technical detail (it was a congressional briefing, after all, not a scientific conference), but Roberts did say that they had done a test comparing the sampling scheme from the 2004 study (i.e., with GPS units) vs. the crossing-street scheme that has been accused of producing Main Street Bias. He claimed that their test showed the same results (but he didn't go into further detail than that). Juan Cole argued that media reports underreport deaths but his argument was anecdotal.
All in all, if you've been following the arguments, not much more info than what we've had up to now. If you haven't been following, it was a pretty good summary of the Roberts-Burnham side of things.
Today's main editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, my local paper, is in support the Lancet study. The Star Tribune was one of the very, very few large newspapers that was against the Iraq War from the beginning, and it is still today one of the few that will highlight the Lancet's findings.
http://www.startribune.com/561/story/869026.html
What's Juan Cole's anecdotal evidence? If anyone cares to share. I sorta like anecdotal evidence--in a way, unless more surveys are done, anecdotal evidence is about the best we've got, if you're trying to decide if the press is catching most of the violence.
I don't have a computer that can handle the videostream--it'd be nice to have a transcript.
Cole argued that not many small and medium-sized towns and cities had newspapers, so there were no media reports for IBC (or anyone else) to pick up.
With regard to Roberts' suggestion that the media visit graveyards and ask pointed questions, I read this article from the LA Times, via the Daily Yomiuri, where a reporter does just that, and finds just the result suggested by Roberts.
I haven`t seen this article in Deltoid before, but sorry if it has been put up and I missed it.
Juan Cole has [posted a transcript of the hearing](http://www.juancole.com/2006/12/kucinich-paul-congressional-hearing-on…).