Via Jim Lobe, here is the coverage of Afghanistan by broadcast news shows over the past decade:
If you're wondering why this matters, it's simple: no president is going to admit that his Afghanistan policies are likely to lead to tens of thousands of Afghans desperately trying to leave the country when the Taliban takes over. Not Trump, not Biden, not any of them. It's the press that should fill that void, warning viewers that a pullback by the US will almost certainly lead to a Taliban takeover and the evacuation of the country.
Instead, we got almost nothing until the very last weeks of the withdrawal. As a result, the chaos on Monday took everyone by surprise and produced a tsunami of panicked hot takes. If reporting had been better, more people would have been prepared for this and Monday's brief panic wouldn't have instantly congealed into a badly misguided conventional wisdom.
Oh well. Bygones.
I thought the issues arising from departure were supposed to be well-known tautologies…. Or was the press getting the same Pollyanna assessments you’ve asserted were snookering the administration?
It's a snooker circle.
You mean a circle snook?-)
You point the finger at the media, which is justified I guess. They do write pieces on potential bad things happening, but not Afghanistan recently.
But I don't remember other participants in the public discourse raising the issue either. Maybe we've all had blinkers on, just like the Americans who didn't leave Afghanistan when State warned them to.
This really is so easily explainable by reasons other than the press doing a poor job in 2020, while admitting that, as usual, they suck.
In 2020, the coverage dropped because of in order;
1) a dramatic election year generating more interest than just about any past year. And so squeezing out coverage of any other story . Normal. Look at the decline in 2016.
2) the biggest news story since maybe ww2, covid, further eating up the minutes
3) and you also had George floyd, blm protests and riots, antifa, proud boys, etc. Another big news story.
4) due to trump 's withdrawal agreement, coverage in 2020 of that ( which was popular) would be considered a positive for trump in reelection. The broadcast news networks did not want to help trump.
If they had covered it for 10 seconds instead of 1.9, all they could cover was that we are withdrawing itself, which helps trump.
Even if they did 60 seconds, with in depth stories explaining the inevitable problems of the withdrawal, helps trump as the public will be OK with chaos in Afghanistan and more Afghan deaths , as long as we withdraw.
I think now would have wanted coverage making the public think that now things are going OK i.e. explaining that somehow ending up with 10,000 Americans trapped in Kabul itself normally maybe an hour or less trip to the airport but now unable to get to the airport- all that was inevitable. But that sort of a screw up was not inevitable and nobody would seriously have reported that way in 2020.
Kevin is imagining this hypothetical extra coverage in 2020 of potential problems helping biden now as it would have prepared the public for some problems. And yes it might have to some extent but not for the inexcusable foul ups we have seen. And that extra Afghanistan coverage might just have been enough so that today it would be helping trump not biden.
Had the press covered the obvious implications of the Trump/Pompo surrender negotiations in a competent manner in 2020 the present situation wouldn't have been a surprise.
Kevin's not saying it would "help Biden," Kevin is analytically surprised of the coverage of stuff that seems obvious being characterized as either "surprising" or "calamatous" or take your pick of the adjective.
You make a mistake, to my mind as well, of assuming that any of the mainstream media has some sort of department designed to assist Democrats. I assure you there is no such department. My assurance is based on the fact that there is no evidence at all (please provide some) that the mainstream media is successful at convincing people of anything they don't already agree with.
You need look no further than vaccinations. Conservative media has been very successful in convincing people to not get vaccinated. Given the size of the resistance you would think that with the entire mainstream media on board with the benefits of being vaccinated that the "persuasion department" if it existed, would have no trouble convincing, what 90% of all people to get vaccinated as soon as possible? You wouldn't even need a "mandate" - I mean, other than Christian Scientists (I have no idea what percentage of the population they are) who is against medical science? Who?
Hence, there is no "persuasion department."
Hear, hear. The MSM is not in the can for the Dems; to the contrary, they're constantly being worked by the right wing noise machine as "The Librul Meedia" so that they have to bend over backwards to not be uncomplimentary to Republicans.
Look at all the cases where "T*** dissembled" or he "prevaricated" or "exaggerated" or some other big less judgemental word, when LIE would have been totally appropriate.
Or discussions of how "mercurial" the dude was, when "erratic", "unstable", "inconsistent", or "impulsive" would have been more accurate.
If the media is piling on Biden now, yet another explanation is that chaos sells. Government mistakes have a big audience. Everybody loves a sob story, and there are 10,000 or more at the Kabul airport. Plus, by hitting hard at a Democratic president, the MSM shows it is decidedly NOT LIBERAL.
I really do not disagree with what you say .
I do think Kevin's context here is that this would be better for Biden. Post after post he is defending biden and arguing it is going as well as could be expected. And here he is saying that the media should have told us this in advance so the public would have known. And then of course the public would not be blaming biden for the inevitable problems.
On media bias, I agree that the media has lost the ability to convince to a large extent, especially over the last decade as the bias has become more noticeable. But not entirely. Yes, cnn is never going to convince most republican partisans of much of anything. Or anybody with a strong contrary view ( such as liberal anti vaxxers). But that is not important politically as strong partisans are already going to vote their party. The important ones are the few in the middle and they are largely apathetic and not knowledgeable and can be swayed sometimes by the last thing they hear, because their views on political issues are just not very defined. So, the media cannot convince easily those with strong views to the contrary ( which is what you are talking about with getting 90% vaccinated) but they still have some power to convince those more wishy washy in the middle.
And the media with power is not cnn, msnbc or fox. Those are generally watched by hard partisans of either side and just confirming what they already believe and would have believed anyway ( Kevin misses this with fox). Of them , fox has a little more influence because they do get some soft democratic viewers as fox is someday more entertaining to those not politically involved. Cnn has some influence in a crisis like now as then they do get some of the more apathetic middle ( which is why this hurts biden now).
But the media with the power are the broadcast networks kevin is taking about. There are still some mushy middle ( older ) who tune in for nightly news as their main source. For younger, it is Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. That have power.
And the way the bias is most effective is NOT convincing. Even the mushy middle tend to tune out if they perceive a bias. It is in WHAT stories are being covered. Burying stories that could hurt their favored candidate is done and does work .
I will routinely, when I see a story on a conservative site that is really bad news for democrats, will then search on liberal sites to hear the other side of the story - to see if it holds up, what defending facts are there. And way too often, if I Google, there are just zero hits anywhere even mentioning it on liberal sites. When I do the same for something being discussed on liberal sites, will always find the issue being discussed on conservative sites.
Liberal media has lost a lot of power to convince on an issue being discussed. But they still have plenty of power to set the agenda of what is being discussed.
All the incessantly negative coverage of trump when he was president did hurt some but more on the margin as it was usually tuned out. But burying the hunter biden story so some undecided voters never even heard of it..that worked..
Advice to those trying to be biased., say like some cnn people in trump news conferences. Outright hostility and disrespect and super negative does not work as anyone can see you are biased ( except someone so anti trump they cannot perceive the bias but they do not matter). Having a softer bias where you appear friendly but sneak in a soft message works.
And bias does not have to be a conscious bias , although I disagree with you that it does not exist. If 90% of the media are personally partisans democrats, they can try very hard to be be unbiased but it has to seep in from their perspective.
Scent,
I guess I will respond once to you as I do not like to respond to trolls like you.
I have been trying to ignore YOU as you are not worth trying to have a conversation with .
A troll is someone who is posting just to be provocative and insulting to provoke a response and I try hard to never do that. I might fail sometimes and maybe I did earlier when I ribbed justin. I thought of that after I posted and maybe I should not.
And I understand this is mainly a liberal site and kevin, as a liberal, is hosting it . And that means, I think, the rules are maybe a bit different for someone like me who is not always with the consensus here. And so if some liberals like say mitch and cld sometimes can get personally insulting in responding to me about actual issues that we are arguing about but it is still some sort of a policy discussion, well OK, I will just take it and not respond in kind with an insult back .
Basically I accept that a liberal gets to vent their frustrations on a liberal site if they are strongly disagreeing with Mr on something they feel passionately about. I do not and will not. I will state what I think and give a full explanation of why , and may make you angry that I think it, but will not stoop to insults and try to keep a civil polite tone. Especially with those who I do enjoy the intellectual interplay and do respect and so can excuse some degeneration of their tone occasionally, like cld.
For trolls like you, who only seem to insult and never really have any counterargument to present, I just prefer to ignore and not get into a troll war.
You say I am being insulting and you would demand an apology . For what ? How could I insult YOU if I have not been recording to you. And I certainly will apologize for something if I think it is deserved, but you kind of have to say what for. Maybe it was you, but when I first started posting here someone asked for an apology and I had no idea for what. So I did just politely ask what for. If deserved , I will apologize. If I think not, will explain why. If it is you want an apology because my thinking does not agree with yours, no.
And, if you do want to respond with an actual logical point of what you disagree with, and you then want to be insulting and add " fuck off", go ahead. I don't care . And I will still respond to your actual argument without insulting you personally back.
But when all you have is " fuck off troll" and have nothing intelligent to say as to why you disagree, I just consider that as an implict admission you have no counter argument.
If you ever debated in high school, a " fuck off" response is a sure loss.
"When I do the same for something being discussed on liberal sites, will always find the issue being discussed on conservative sites."
Hmm. Not sure what conservative sites you check . I do this off and on with Fox News and without a doubt the way they skew the news the most is by omission. Try following climate change news on Fox. You'll find anything short of the latest IPCC report will get little or no coverage and when it gets coverage it will be 3 days later and will consist of Hannity interviewing one of the small stable of climate deniers debunking the news before anyone has ever heard the straight story.
On just covering a story routinely, all networks cover what they want and that is usually based on what their bias thinks is important.
It is more if say the ny times has front page headlines accusing say de Santis of something horrible. And cnn is headlining it and it is being talked about all around the liberal media.
Then you will find push back on fix news, or places like redstate, hotair , etc. Some sort of defense as to why the liberal stories have it wrong . Either something clear where the liberal anti de Santis story is really full of shit. Or, if there is some validity to it, the best defense they can find ( even if it is weak).
On the contrary say I read a story on some really conservative site like ace of spades. And it reports something that sounds really bad for biden . And I see the same thing talked about on fox and redstate etc. And boy is this is true it looks bad for biden. But I do not want to take on face value what is being said when only from conservative sites. So I want to see what liberal sites are saying about it and hear the other side so I can assess myself.
Sometimes I can find plenty on liberal sites explaining why they think the story is hogwash, often with persuasive points ( or, if not, points that I could see a liberal would think are persuasive).
But other times, just nothing nowhere. Nothing on cnn, nbc, etc. Story is blowing up all over conservative sites and zero anywhere else ( except sometimes some non conservative context on liberal UK sites). I Google and every hit is conservative and uk. A big story conservatives are pushing and liberals are not even trying to rebut. Why?
Because they can. They have the power to bury a story effectively enough that many of the wishy washy less involved never hear of it.
Conservatives do not have the power to bury a news story. If they could they probably would. But they don't. They have to respond and rebut or try to, a negative news story because it will still be heard through Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Conservatives just cannot cocoon themselves in only conservative media as well if they want to use things like Twitter and Facebook. Liberals can never have to listen to the conservative side and live their normal life.
"But burying the hunter biden story so some undecided voters never even heard of it..that worked"
Has it ever occurred to you that the reason for non-conservative sites not covering stories that are "blowing up" on conservative media could be because most of those stories (Benghazi, Hunter Biden, etc) are clearly complete bullshit and not even worth addressing?
Conservative media invents a story about Hunter Biden to try and influence people to not vote for Joe Biden. Why would other networks have any responsibility to address it? To what benefit? It's just another example of the old "never wrestle a pig" metaphor.
Fuck off, troll. Your behaviour is insulting in the extreme. I'd demand an apology, but it's a matter of pride with trolls that they never apologize.
It's not like there was much of an audience for truthful coverage about Afghanistan. Who wanted to read that the Afghan army wasnt really functional, the government was full of corruption, and the Taliban had control in many parts of the country? Total bummer and no easy way to turn it into a partisan blame game.
If you did read the very limited coverage that existed, there wasnt all that much of a surprise. I guess it took a bit less time than most of us anticipated, but the dribs and drabs in the media from the last few years made it pretty clear that the Taliban was going to end up in control.
It was a bit strange, though, that the US media basically ignored Trump's Doha deal. Its parallels with Chamberlain at Munich were obvious. One would have thought "Trump stabs Ghani in the back, does deal with terrorist insurgents" was a story lots of journalists would have loved to publish.
I did bring up that the liberal media might have not wanted to mention it because it could help trump ( which it would have even if they were reporting possible problems) . And kevin seemed to be saying that unfair now to biden as they did a poor job by not covering it.
But easier explanation covers it all and probably the same anyway. Other stories just crowded it out. Covid, the election, blm, riots, all drowned out anything else.
Take any other long term story- say the Ukraine War. Same thing. Used to see that a lot . For last few years zero . And fighting still going on.
And this is emphasized as talking about broadcast that have very little time . It was covered some on cable like cnn and fox with 24 hours to cover.
And, if I remember, there was discussion from some democrats that it was trump trying to use it as a distraction from bad covid news so complaining that it was getting covered at all.
When do we hear of South America or Africa stories? Airplane crashes, volcanos, or (our) dead soldiers. Otherwise, bupkis.
We hear about Lambda!
Back in the day, an "Afghanistan Story" was literally any story that nobody was actually interested in, where ever it took place.
I guess the thousands of people killed and injured at the hands of the US military every year didn’t really matter to the media or the public.
Well, ok then. Lets fix the current problem by killing a bunch more!
Honestly they do not matter much to many Americans.
And the ones where it does matter are generally either strong conservative or strong liberals who are politically committed to one side or the other
. And whose votes are not changing in any case.
the only thing surprising about this is the speed with which it happened. that's it.
"If reporting had been better, more people would have been prepared for this and Monday's brief panic wouldn't have instantly congealed into a badly misguided conventional wisdom."
What sells more papers/attracts more eyeballs? "Gasp Taliban!/Gasp Ai Quaeda!" or "We are headed toward the abandonment of Afghans." We get the journalism we pay for.
Was the 2012 spike related to the Obummer-Rmoney faceoff, or was that the year Bowe Bergdahl's treasonous self was returned to America without having to face any punishment?
You'd think that several years of capture and torture by the Taliban would be punishment enough for the bloodthristy cons, but not really...
I don't actually think Bergdahl was a traitor, just a seeker who sought at the wrong time in the wrong place.
& stacked up against Chelsea Manning, Ed Snowden, Tom Cotton, Allen West, et. al., he's a stalwart hero.
Stuff like this was online months ago:
The US State Department also advised Americans to leave the country last April.
The question therefore is why any private citizens of other countries were still in Afghanistan two weeks ago, and why anyone should feel they're entitled to the slightest sympathy or assistance from their governments.
Yet today the Australian public broadcaster (which ought to know better) published a sob story about an Afghan-Australian who went home to visit his parents, leaving a wife and three children here. Now he finds he can't get to the airport. "Australian government, please help me!" The media's coverage of the whole affair has been disgraceful.
One thing mentioned is the presumed 9/11 backup deadline.
One thing I never understood politically is why in hell the administration has any sort of timing linked to 9/11. The last thing you should want is coverage of the messy pullout intermingled with 9/11 remembrances.
"We are finally leaving Afghanistan and leaving it to the same taliban who allowed 9/11 to happen ". Why would you want that anywhere near the anniversary?
No idea, but then why did Trump want to invite the Taliban to Camp David on the same date? Weird ideas germinate in spin factories. Presumably Biden's mob came to their senses and changed it to August 31.
You expect journalists to know more than their sources?
How touching.
These are the type of ideas that come from the elite establishment of both parties that have no concept of how voters think.
But trump never did invite the taliban to camp David on 9/11, and certainly not as part of any sort of ceremony or event. The taliban and the Afghan govt were invited there a weekend just before 9/11, not on 9/11, to try to get negotiations going. And it was supposed to be a secret meeting.
Trump did not invite them on a date to try to link it to 9/11 with some sort of ceremony. Was not intentional. Now should they have realized it was too close to 9/11 and best to avoid that. Sure. And maybe they did think of that and thought it did then did not matter. And perhaps even stupider if your straight depends on secrecy.
And it all did blow up when the taliban admitted or more like bragged that they were responsible for a bombing right before, presumably as leverage. And then trump publicly cancellled it.
All seemed suspicious to me at the time. Did the taliban really think they could get extra negotiation leverage with someone like trump with a bombing?
You might try that with biden if you perceive him as weak . But trump? I think most of the world perceive him as more of a potential crazy asshole. And you do not try that crap then. Note that it actually does help in negotiations with people like the taliban to be perceived as a crazy asshole . That is a good thing . Of course best to just be perceived as a crazy asshole, but not actually be one ( nixon).
So I thought maybe the taliban had no intention of attending the camp david meeting but were happy having it near 9/11. And the bombing was to get trump to cancel it, leading to that being a story . And the media, predictably, pounce on the fact that it was near 9/11 so people (like you) start remembering it as trump himself inviting them intentionally right on 9/11. So maybe trump got played by the taliban.
And biden did not change any date of 9/11 to 8/31 after coming to their senses. They moved the may date to 8/31 negotiating with the taliban and giving concessions for that . The 9/11 date has been discussed as an alternative date if extended after 8/31. Which is stupid as biden should prefer anything other than 9/11.
Again all feels suspicious. First, like camp david and trump, there is a taliban negotiated agreement with a date just before 9/11. As should have been expected, problems happen and looks like will need a bit longer, which will of course get you right around 9/11. Ya think maybe the taliban played biden too like trump and is manipulating it so 9/11 is a key date to our humiliation?