Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama’s military surge in Afghanistan has caught very little flack in the media, even though experts on the region say it doesn’t make sense and distorts realities on the ground in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. We'll talk to journalist Gareth Porter about coverage of the Afghanistan surge, an Obama policy he calls "a stunningly irrational blunder.” Also on CounterSpin today, the G-20 summit in London has attracted a lot of media attention; that this is Barack Obama's first major sit-down with other world leaders is probably one factor. But looming over the event [...]
Mar
19
2008
Why Are Winter Soldiers Not News?
Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland last weekend for the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings (3/13/08-3/16/08), where they offered harrowing testimony about atrocities they had witnessed or participated in directly. The BBC predicted that the event, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, "could be dominating the headlines around the world this week" (3/7/08). The hearings were covered as far afield as the U.K. (Guardian, 3/17/08), Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 3/14/08), Croatia (Javno, 3/16/08), and Iran (Press TV, 3/14/08). Yet there has been an almost complete media blackout on this historic [...]
Aug
01
2007
'Accidents' Will Happen
Excusing civilian deaths in Afghanistan
By Peter Hart
When they’re discussed at all by corporate media, civilian deaths in Afghanistan are often presented as a tactical or public relations problem for U.S. military and political officials, or labeled as “accidental” or “errant.” The civilian deaths are not accidents, however; they are the predictable result of a deliberate decision to protect American troops by putting Afghan noncombatants at risk. A Chicago Tribune story on July 8 commented, “Such bombings and the allegations of civilian casualties, exaggerated or not, are now the biggest challenge facing foreign forces trying to prop up Afghanistan’s government.” This is an odd construction; U.S. media [...]
Feb
01
2002
New York Times Buries Story of Airstrikes on Civilians
Extra! Update February 2002
By Rachel Coen
On December 30, U.S. airstrikes hit the village of Niazi Kala (also called Qalaye Niaze) in eastern Afghanistan, killing dozens of civilians. The attack was major news in several British newspapers, with the Guardian and the Independent running front-page stories. The headlines were straightforward: "U.S. Accused of Killing Over 100 Villagers in Airstrike" (Guardian, 1/1/02); "U.S. Accused of Killing 100 Civilians in Afghan Bombing Raid" (Independent, 1/1/02); –100 Villagers Killed' in U.S. Airstrike" (London Times, 1/1/02). In contrast, the New York Times first reported the civilian deaths at Niazi Kala under the bland headline "Afghan Leader Warily Backs U.S. Bombing" [...]
Feb
01
2002
Indirect From the Battlefield
By John L. Hess
EXTRA! Update NEW YORK CITY—If the first casualty of war is the truth, any dispatch from Afghanistan was likely to slay it in its very first word. The dateline says: We are there, we saw it happen. But they weren’t. They didn’t. Poor Geraldo Rivera got slugged for pretending otherwise. A crossover from MSNBC to Fox News in the rating wars, he was on his first combat mission for Rupert Murdoch (Extra!, 1-2/02). He let it be known that he was armed to the teeth, or at least to the ankle holster, raring to track the enemy into his cave. [...]
Jan
01
2002
It's Not Just the Veil
Media need to look deeper at women's role in Afghanistan
There was a moment in the war against Afghanistan when the Bush administration appeared to care about nothing so much as women's liberation. Out came first lady Laura Bush to talk to the nation about the matter. On November 16, she became what her publicists cheered was "the first first lady to deliver an entire presidential radio address" when she denounced the "severe repression against women of Afghanistan." Laura Bush's speech was coordinated with the release of a State Department report that condemned conditions for women and children under the Taliban and the Al Qaeda terror network. "The fight against [...]
Jan
01
2002
See No Evil
PR war, not death toll, is nightly news' focus
By Rachel Coen
How many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of U.S.-led bombing? It's an admittedly difficult question to answer, but many U.S. media outlets don't even seem to be trying. None of the major networks' nightly newscasts are offering even rough estimates of the overall number of civilians killed. It may be some time before a full accounting of the civilian toll from the U.S.-led bombing in Afghanistan is possible, but relief agencies and a few noteworthy news stories do provide information about the scale of the devastation. As a "conservative" estimate, Doctors Without Borders reports that civilian [...]
Oct
01
1989
Biased Afghan Coverage at CBS
Print Media Protect Rather
Despite mainstream journalists' claim of strict objectivity in covering the news, they make exceptions: Some stories are covered without even the pretense of neutrality. Dan Rather and CBS News, for example, adopted a cause throughout the 1980s--that of the Afghan mujahedeen. Sloppiness in the advocacy of that cause created a recent scandal for the network. Beginning September 27, a series of articles by Janet Wilson in the New York Post charged that Dan Rather's CBS newscasts had repeatedly "aired fake battle footage and false news accounts" of the Afghan War. Among the charges: Fakery: CBS presented staged "action-packed commando" footage [...]
