The job of the press should be to follow a story where the evidence takes it, but the press these days often gathers only the evidence that fits the story they already have in mind. So, we had lots of early stories about people scrambling to get on planes to depart Afghanistan, but only a few stories later about all the people flying out of the country on regularly scheduled flights. It is a given that the press often follows a pre-existing narrative. For that reason, the question is "What made the press fashion that particular narrative in the first place?". Here we bounce around with the possible answers: both sides must be represented in the news, so republican talking points get equal play; republicans own the media conglomerates; both owners and journalists prefer (for different reasons) exciting stories to boring stories...and so on. Whether we are talking about narrative-following or how the narratives are formed, we are talking about bad journalism.......And thank you, Eric, writing on these issues and for again using the word, 'dopey'.
Shades of medical and science reporters being squeezed out of the Covid task force pressers so the political reporters could cover the Former Guy's performance art.
I believe the new phrase is 'access journalism'...Richard Engel in Kabul has become more and more hysterical. I suggest that people switch to Al Jazeera...saner.
The media doesn't seem interested in the Special Inspector General's reports on Afghanistan. One from 2016 noted that the 300-thousand man "army" was actually just 300-thousand paychecks. No one seemed to be able to confirm the actual existence of a significant percentage of the "troops." As was the case with post invasion Iraq, the corruption in Afghanistan was nauseating. Apparently that is not a sufficiently entertaining story for our junior high level reporters to track down.
The media was all over the Washington Post’s Afghanistan Papers report back in 2019. The title of it was: “AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH: U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.”
From what I understand that report made it clear that the officials most responsible was the military who were constantly painting a much rosier picture of Afghanistan. Funny how the media knew that then but has conveniently forgotten it now that they can put all the blame on Biden. They act as if he was acting on his own; that he wasn’t being told by his military advisers that the Afghanistan army would hold out for awhile. But the media hates to criticize the men who run our military so they will likely get a pass. How could such manly guys be wrong? It must be the fault of those Democratic wusses, amirite?
As John Nichols wrote in The Nation this mess…..”began with the flailing co-presidency of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney. It was the Bush-Cheney administration (for which Liz Cheney served as the nepotistic deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs) that responded to the September 11, 2001, attacks with a boundless “war on terror” that first targeted Afghanistan but quickly evolved to include the primary project of the Cheneys: the invasion and occupation of oil-rich Iraq.”
Jennifer Rubin has a column up which says Biden’s State Department has been focusing for months on getting all those US citizens out. Starting in April they sent multiple warnings to those people, some with offers to pay the airfare
The DC press for the most part has become the National Inquirer. Why do I feel like circulation and book deals define the coverage of news. The story should be how we dropped 2 trillion, much of it going to contractors, who were “training” the Afghans. As long as our national government is based on bribery, and the press won’t dig into that story, we are the mercy of people figuring it out on their own. If you have any questions, follow the money.
I am struck by how few journalists are willing to point out that this was a quagmire that was never never going to have a good ending and that is the fault of Dubya and Cheney. The media widely covered Liz Cheney’s comments about who is to blame without pointing out that not only her father but she herself is culpable. Liz was the State Department’s Deputy Assistant for Near Easter Affairs for the Bush administration at the time Bush started this war and was a big supporter.
I am also infuriated by all the reports of that recent Morning Consult poll emphasizing it showed a big drop in support for he withdrawal with only 49% now approving. Many conveniently neglected to point out that that that 49% was still 12 points higher than opposition to the withdrawal.
My ongoing question is, where has the press been on this story for 20 years!? Sure there has been occasional coverage, and anyone paying any attention knew that sooner or later America would leave Afghanistan in defeat. Where were the David Halberstams, Neil Sheehans, Seymour Hershes, who covered Vietnam so well? Has the Pentagon learned to squash objective war reporting, have the media sold out for access, or some combo? Inquiring minds would like to know!
I am still galled that: if we had accepted the Taliban's offer to had bin Laden over to us -- or had insisted on going there to destroy al Qeda and capturing bin Laden then and there... the whole business should have been done by New Year's Day 2002. At the latest. The Bushes and Cheneys should be in jail, and certainly NOT getting free passes as elder statesmen.
The Beltway press played a BIG, BIG part in pushing for both of Bush's wars back in the 00's. Of course they're goinjg to be angry at whoever ended them, it means they spent years cheerleading for the neocons for nothing.
I have come to loathe Politico, which I now refer to as "Republico." If I wanted GOP talking points, I could go to National Review. Feel pretty much the same about The Hill. And the fact that so much of the MSM are feckless and gutless in the face of right wing whining about "liberal bias" (keeping in mind that reality has a liberal bias anyway) makes me physically ill. Then again, it's not all cowardice. It's also greed, which Les Moonves revealed in 2016 when he said that Trump might be bad for America but was great for CBS. That cat's been out of the bag for five years now. Still wondering whether the MSM will enjoy the imminent fascism they are unwittingly enabling. Fascism and a free press have never been friends.
Politico and The Hill both so dedicated to click bait headlines- sometimes the actual story is completely opposite and maybe not even newsworthy. I can't bother with them any more.
Since the Beltway Political Industrial Complex functions as sycophantic couriers for the GQP masters they have no concerns about demise of "free press".
The ivory tower where I dwell is a state university that is one of the most diverse campuses in the nation. I'll be curious next week. I have the funny feeling that the students won't be caught up in the idea that Biden singlehandedly destroyed our successful program in Afghanistan. The media have to remain so because, remember, the L word still is not Liberal. The L word for the political media is Lazy, and this is a story where they can ignore reality even more than they usually do.
Talking Point Memo’s Josh Marshall wrote about the media effort to shape the public opinion on Afghanistan:
“ In fact, it’s one I first saw a quarter century ago when DC’s establishment press got really, really upset that not only Bill Clinton but more importantly most of the country didn’t agree with their take on impeachment in 1998.”
The Morning Consult poll that so many in the media are quoting to prove they have changed public support for the withdrawal does show a 20 point drop in those who approve. What most of the media isn’t saying is that poll still shows much more support for withdrawal than opposition — 49% for to 37% against. To me that is strong evidence of deliberately skewing the facts to manipulate public opinion and finally damage Biden’s approval ratings.
It is so interesting to watch cable (msnbc in this case) as the news from Afghanistan has quickly morphed from headlines of hair on fire chaos to a more organized, evacuation. Katty Kaye still stressing the loss of America’s standing in the world though conditions on the ground are changing/improving; others having to rely on loops of the same 3 or so videos of the first day of the evacuation at the airport as though those conditions persist. Do they think no one will notice the rapid shift back to vaccinations and away from Afghanistan as the lede, no questions asked. Really something. Press damage done. Next. Eric, you are indeed a jewel! Thanks per usual for your steadfast commitment to sanity, facts, context in press reporting.
there's no doubt the press over the weekend did not think the Afghanistatn story would be where it is today....which might be why they're still airing airport footage from Sunday
"Katty Kaye still stressing the loss of America’s standing in the world" - Someone should probably tell the Beltway press that NOTHING Biden could do would lose America standing in the world quite as much as electing Donald fucking Trump did...
I'm glad you included Nicole Wallace's comment. I thought it was very telling. On the other hand Richard Engle's reports from Kabul have been way beyond 'coverage' and into the editorial territory for me. Plus loving that Los Lobos record. So much great music coming out this summer.
Eric, excellently researched and well-written piece! And I appreciated your link to Twitter User Jess Coleman making a point about Politico calling Biden's speech Trumpian, where he tweeted: "Look, Biden deserves criticism for his execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But calling his speech yesterday 'Trumpian' is outrageous and bordering on pro-war propaganda." Definitely. I commended him and pointed out that this came more specifically from the notorious Politico Playbook team — @playbookDC — which consists of @rachaelmbade, @EugeneDaniels2, @RyanLizza and @tarapalmeri (in case anyone wants to angry tweet at them). This is far from the first time they've done something like this — these guys are the height of stirring the pot for clickbait.
Well, at huge risk of repeating myself and being boring...: The mainstream press haven't acquitted themselves all that well regarding Afghanistan, more specifically our invasion, since ca. September 2001. Now we're getting concern for Afghans about to be killed, but over twenty years approximately no concern from the media for the at least tens of thousands as a result of our invasion and occupation. Essentially no detailing of why the invasion quickly became a failure. Or that we couldn't actually succeed without destabilizing Pakistan.
And then sort of parallel to the issue of Biden's timing with the withdrawal is that Trump's 2020 treaty with the Taliban in which we promised them a return to power in a year or so as well as the release of 5,000 prisoners in exchange for empty promises served to tell them to start preparing to take power again whilst our Afghan puppets for whom being corrupted by Uncle Sugar was Job 1 and delivering for their people was pretty goddam far down their list of priorities if at all just kept on failing.
Too, there's a presumption, I guess, that the problem with the military-industrial complex is that it's a flood of money flowing to businesses. But it has a collateral effort of, to a degree, shifting the military's focus towards enriching private interests at the expense of actual military security matters. I'd like to think upper management in military knew goddam well that going in Afghanistan was an ungodly mistake; it was really, really obvious at the time and nothing changed since then. Vietnam demonstrated that no amount of materiel can win hearts and minds when we insist on doing business with corrupt puppets. (BTW: I'm highly skeptical of the Russian report that Ghani left with nearly $170B in cash -- the size of such a load and no reason think any Russian would be in a position to know triggers the BS detector. OTOH, I do doubt that he's very, very far from destitute.)
Our Failed Political Press ™ cannot report honestly on Afghanistan, or it would have to report how their experts got it wrong for 20 years, and then who would trust them again. The media would be forced to say that Barbara Lee got it right as did all the filthy hippies, and that just won’t happen. We will never, ever see the 2000s anti-invasion of Afghanistan Left on the news.
If you or I had done our one job as disastrously as the media, we would be shown the door with a cheese sandwich and a roadmap out of town.
The job of the press should be to follow a story where the evidence takes it, but the press these days often gathers only the evidence that fits the story they already have in mind. So, we had lots of early stories about people scrambling to get on planes to depart Afghanistan, but only a few stories later about all the people flying out of the country on regularly scheduled flights. It is a given that the press often follows a pre-existing narrative. For that reason, the question is "What made the press fashion that particular narrative in the first place?". Here we bounce around with the possible answers: both sides must be represented in the news, so republican talking points get equal play; republicans own the media conglomerates; both owners and journalists prefer (for different reasons) exciting stories to boring stories...and so on. Whether we are talking about narrative-following or how the narratives are formed, we are talking about bad journalism.......And thank you, Eric, writing on these issues and for again using the word, 'dopey'.
this what happens when political reporters dominate coverage for, in this case, national security issue. it all comes back to "winning" and "losing"
"dopey" does remain a fav of mine..
Shades of medical and science reporters being squeezed out of the Covid task force pressers so the political reporters could cover the Former Guy's performance art.
I believe the new phrase is 'access journalism'...Richard Engel in Kabul has become more and more hysterical. I suggest that people switch to Al Jazeera...saner.
The media doesn't seem interested in the Special Inspector General's reports on Afghanistan. One from 2016 noted that the 300-thousand man "army" was actually just 300-thousand paychecks. No one seemed to be able to confirm the actual existence of a significant percentage of the "troops." As was the case with post invasion Iraq, the corruption in Afghanistan was nauseating. Apparently that is not a sufficiently entertaining story for our junior high level reporters to track down.
correct. media wanted a fantasy, orderly withdrawal
The media was all over the Washington Post’s Afghanistan Papers report back in 2019. The title of it was: “AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH: U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/
From what I understand that report made it clear that the officials most responsible was the military who were constantly painting a much rosier picture of Afghanistan. Funny how the media knew that then but has conveniently forgotten it now that they can put all the blame on Biden. They act as if he was acting on his own; that he wasn’t being told by his military advisers that the Afghanistan army would hold out for awhile. But the media hates to criticize the men who run our military so they will likely get a pass. How could such manly guys be wrong? It must be the fault of those Democratic wusses, amirite?
it is amazing how *only* Biden is to blame for what's unfolded. as i mentioned, apparently military planners no longer exist
And George Bush? Barack Obama? TFG?
As John Nichols wrote in The Nation this mess…..”began with the flailing co-presidency of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney. It was the Bush-Cheney administration (for which Liz Cheney served as the nepotistic deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs) that responded to the September 11, 2001, attacks with a boundless “war on terror” that first targeted Afghanistan but quickly evolved to include the primary project of the Cheneys: the invasion and occupation of oil-rich Iraq.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/afghanistan-withdrawal-liz-cheney-dick-cheney/
Liz Cheney needs to blame her dad. Dubya and herself before anyone else. they
Jennifer Rubin has a column up which says Biden’s State Department has been focusing for months on getting all those US citizens out. Starting in April they sent multiple warnings to those people, some with offers to pay the airfare
Oops! Here is the link
https://pressrun.media/p/the-medias-summer-of-discontent-waging/comments#comment-2651435
The media should be telling us that those American citizens have had plenty of time to get out but chose not to.
Biden included that in his speech the other day but was pooh pooped by talking heads in the press for being untruthful.
That’s pooh poohed. Autocorrect at its most whimsical 😊.
Excellent piece by Sarah Chayes. She reported for NPR then left journalism to help the Afghans.
https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/the-ides-of-august
Terrific piece. Thx!
And who knows how many of those paychecks ever 'trickled' down to the actual fighters.
I saw a report that Afghan army/cops were selling their weapons to the Taliban and/or accepting cash because they were not being paid.
The DC press for the most part has become the National Inquirer. Why do I feel like circulation and book deals define the coverage of news. The story should be how we dropped 2 trillion, much of it going to contractors, who were “training” the Afghans. As long as our national government is based on bribery, and the press won’t dig into that story, we are the mercy of people figuring it out on their own. If you have any questions, follow the money.
ah, yes and this news that JUST CAME OUT, will be totally ignored by the MSM. U.S. weekly jobless claims fall to 17-month low
I am struck by how few journalists are willing to point out that this was a quagmire that was never never going to have a good ending and that is the fault of Dubya and Cheney. The media widely covered Liz Cheney’s comments about who is to blame without pointing out that not only her father but she herself is culpable. Liz was the State Department’s Deputy Assistant for Near Easter Affairs for the Bush administration at the time Bush started this war and was a big supporter.
I am also infuriated by all the reports of that recent Morning Consult poll emphasizing it showed a big drop in support for he withdrawal with only 49% now approving. Many conveniently neglected to point out that that that 49% was still 12 points higher than opposition to the withdrawal.
Hi Eric. Big fan here.
My ongoing question is, where has the press been on this story for 20 years!? Sure there has been occasional coverage, and anyone paying any attention knew that sooner or later America would leave Afghanistan in defeat. Where were the David Halberstams, Neil Sheehans, Seymour Hershes, who covered Vietnam so well? Has the Pentagon learned to squash objective war reporting, have the media sold out for access, or some combo? Inquiring minds would like to know!
I am still galled that: if we had accepted the Taliban's offer to had bin Laden over to us -- or had insisted on going there to destroy al Qeda and capturing bin Laden then and there... the whole business should have been done by New Year's Day 2002. At the latest. The Bushes and Cheneys should be in jail, and certainly NOT getting free passes as elder statesmen.
The Beltway press played a BIG, BIG part in pushing for both of Bush's wars back in the 00's. Of course they're goinjg to be angry at whoever ended them, it means they spent years cheerleading for the neocons for nothing.
I have come to loathe Politico, which I now refer to as "Republico." If I wanted GOP talking points, I could go to National Review. Feel pretty much the same about The Hill. And the fact that so much of the MSM are feckless and gutless in the face of right wing whining about "liberal bias" (keeping in mind that reality has a liberal bias anyway) makes me physically ill. Then again, it's not all cowardice. It's also greed, which Les Moonves revealed in 2016 when he said that Trump might be bad for America but was great for CBS. That cat's been out of the bag for five years now. Still wondering whether the MSM will enjoy the imminent fascism they are unwittingly enabling. Fascism and a free press have never been friends.
Charlie Pierce in Esquire nailed it. He has long called Politico “Tiger Beat on the Potomac”—a wonderful description.
Politico and The Hill both so dedicated to click bait headlines- sometimes the actual story is completely opposite and maybe not even newsworthy. I can't bother with them any more.
Since the Beltway Political Industrial Complex functions as sycophantic couriers for the GQP masters they have no concerns about demise of "free press".
The ivory tower where I dwell is a state university that is one of the most diverse campuses in the nation. I'll be curious next week. I have the funny feeling that the students won't be caught up in the idea that Biden singlehandedly destroyed our successful program in Afghanistan. The media have to remain so because, remember, the L word still is not Liberal. The L word for the political media is Lazy, and this is a story where they can ignore reality even more than they usually do.
Mr. Boehlert. The “long crisis” faced by President Biden is the eternal hammering he will take from RW Media and other “Media” looking for a story.
I refer you to recent articles by Max Boot on the issue. Boot, literally, suggests endless war, or another 70 years which is the same thing at my age.
Talking Point Memo’s Josh Marshall wrote about the media effort to shape the public opinion on Afghanistan:
“ In fact, it’s one I first saw a quarter century ago when DC’s establishment press got really, really upset that not only Bill Clinton but more importantly most of the country didn’t agree with their take on impeachment in 1998.”
The Morning Consult poll that so many in the media are quoting to prove they have changed public support for the withdrawal does show a 20 point drop in those who approve. What most of the media isn’t saying is that poll still shows much more support for withdrawal than opposition — 49% for to 37% against. To me that is strong evidence of deliberately skewing the facts to manipulate public opinion and finally damage Biden’s approval ratings.
Let’s wait and see what polls say as things change on the ground and msm changes it’s focus, please Lord, to a different crisis.
It is so interesting to watch cable (msnbc in this case) as the news from Afghanistan has quickly morphed from headlines of hair on fire chaos to a more organized, evacuation. Katty Kaye still stressing the loss of America’s standing in the world though conditions on the ground are changing/improving; others having to rely on loops of the same 3 or so videos of the first day of the evacuation at the airport as though those conditions persist. Do they think no one will notice the rapid shift back to vaccinations and away from Afghanistan as the lede, no questions asked. Really something. Press damage done. Next. Eric, you are indeed a jewel! Thanks per usual for your steadfast commitment to sanity, facts, context in press reporting.
there's no doubt the press over the weekend did not think the Afghanistatn story would be where it is today....which might be why they're still airing airport footage from Sunday
"Katty Kaye still stressing the loss of America’s standing in the world" - Someone should probably tell the Beltway press that NOTHING Biden could do would lose America standing in the world quite as much as electing Donald fucking Trump did...
I'm glad you included Nicole Wallace's comment. I thought it was very telling. On the other hand Richard Engle's reports from Kabul have been way beyond 'coverage' and into the editorial territory for me. Plus loving that Los Lobos record. So much great music coming out this summer.
He’s personalizing all of his reports these days. No objectivity; he’s doing advocacy.
Andrea Mitchell as well.
Agree. Finally stopped tuning in.
Eric, excellently researched and well-written piece! And I appreciated your link to Twitter User Jess Coleman making a point about Politico calling Biden's speech Trumpian, where he tweeted: "Look, Biden deserves criticism for his execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But calling his speech yesterday 'Trumpian' is outrageous and bordering on pro-war propaganda." Definitely. I commended him and pointed out that this came more specifically from the notorious Politico Playbook team — @playbookDC — which consists of @rachaelmbade, @EugeneDaniels2, @RyanLizza and @tarapalmeri (in case anyone wants to angry tweet at them). This is far from the first time they've done something like this — these guys are the height of stirring the pot for clickbait.
From Judd Legum on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1428363331916599315?s=20
Tonight, Lawrence O'Donnell addressed the gotcha withdrawal framing. Impactful first segment. Not enough time but at least he stepped up.
Well, at huge risk of repeating myself and being boring...: The mainstream press haven't acquitted themselves all that well regarding Afghanistan, more specifically our invasion, since ca. September 2001. Now we're getting concern for Afghans about to be killed, but over twenty years approximately no concern from the media for the at least tens of thousands as a result of our invasion and occupation. Essentially no detailing of why the invasion quickly became a failure. Or that we couldn't actually succeed without destabilizing Pakistan.
And then sort of parallel to the issue of Biden's timing with the withdrawal is that Trump's 2020 treaty with the Taliban in which we promised them a return to power in a year or so as well as the release of 5,000 prisoners in exchange for empty promises served to tell them to start preparing to take power again whilst our Afghan puppets for whom being corrupted by Uncle Sugar was Job 1 and delivering for their people was pretty goddam far down their list of priorities if at all just kept on failing.
Too, there's a presumption, I guess, that the problem with the military-industrial complex is that it's a flood of money flowing to businesses. But it has a collateral effort of, to a degree, shifting the military's focus towards enriching private interests at the expense of actual military security matters. I'd like to think upper management in military knew goddam well that going in Afghanistan was an ungodly mistake; it was really, really obvious at the time and nothing changed since then. Vietnam demonstrated that no amount of materiel can win hearts and minds when we insist on doing business with corrupt puppets. (BTW: I'm highly skeptical of the Russian report that Ghani left with nearly $170B in cash -- the size of such a load and no reason think any Russian would be in a position to know triggers the BS detector. OTOH, I do doubt that he's very, very far from destitute.)
Our Failed Political Press ™ cannot report honestly on Afghanistan, or it would have to report how their experts got it wrong for 20 years, and then who would trust them again. The media would be forced to say that Barbara Lee got it right as did all the filthy hippies, and that just won’t happen. We will never, ever see the 2000s anti-invasion of Afghanistan Left on the news.
If you or I had done our one job as disastrously as the media, we would be shown the door with a cheese sandwich and a roadmap out of town.