Newspapers struggle with strategic stories, particularly when they spill over their traditional dividing lines between politics, foreign policy, and business news. Relatively straightforward stories on economics or international trade are difficult enough to place in most newspapers. The geopolitical intricacies of the Caspian story make it doubly hard. It is notable that the Washington Post tried to overcome this problem by teaming a reporter from its business section with a reporter from its national desk. Both have since returned to their beats.
Reporters are often bad at handling such stories, and editors are worse.
In the case of the Caspian, there may simply be too many players and problems to fit the standard formulas. In defense of journalism, it can be argued that the Caspian story is not pegged to any specific group of readers that editors can easily identify. The oil industry has its own trade press, with which daily newspapers see no need to compete. Policy analysts are not a target audience that can boost circulation. Ethnic groups from the Caspian littoral countries exist in only small numbers in the United States.