How Did TV News Talk About Torture in Coverage of the Torture Report?

A new FAIR study (Media Advisory, 1/7/15) finds that torture supporters outnumbered critics of torture nearly 2-to-1 in TV news coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture. While those who authorized and carried out torture were well-represented, like George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and several CIA officials, victims of torture were entirely missing and their advocates barely heard from.

But beyond who got a chance to speak, how were these discussions conducted and what was said?

Human Rights Take a Back Seat to Partisan Bickering

In analyzing the transcripts of these shows, the most glaring thing I noticed was how media mostly put this story in the context of partisan political bickering rather than focusing on torture as a human rights issue.

Indeed, as the study explains, “Representatives of human rights groups and experts on international law were notable for their absence.” Out of the 104 guests surveyed in the study, only two lawyers who represented torture victims–Joseph Margulies (12/9/14) and Meg Satterthwaite (12/14/14)–appeared as part of the torture discussion. This was perhaps the closest the media got to emphasizing human rights.

Torture defenders attempted to delegitimize the report’s findings as too partisan–because it was crafted by the then-Democratic Senate majority on the Intelligence Committee–and complained that the CIA was not interviewed for the report. These were common talking points of Vice President Dick Cheney (Special Report, 12/10/14; Meet the Press, 12/14/14), also parroted by other hawks such as Alberto Gonzales, Charles Krauthammer and Newt Gingrich. Even Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan (Face the Nation, 12/14/14), who was coded as opposing torture (“Stop now. Rethink this thing”), complained about the report’s partisanship.

Thus, the critics conclude, the public should turn their attention to the Republican Senate minority report and the CIA’s rebuttal, which refute the claims of the Senate majority report. The notion that the Republican and CIA-crafted reports could also be “partisan” and full of distortions was not entertained.

Fearmongering Cliches

Another talking point amongst torture defenders was that the torture techniques described in the report saved American lives by preventing terrorist attacks following 9/11. Some of these individuals also claimed that releasing the report would increase the possibility of an imminent attack on the United States.

Before the actual release of the report on December 9, various US government departments issued alerts–particularly towards US embassies and military bases–for possible “terrorist retaliation” connected to the release of the torture report. Like the other news programs surveyed, these government alerts were repeated ad nauseam by Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer, his guests and correspondents–for a total of 30 mentions, the most of any show. (Note: FAIR only analyzed the program’s first hour, because all the other surveyed programs were one-hour long–so that doesn’t count the times Situation Room hyped these government alerts in the second half of the show.) This drumbeat continued even as the show’s own Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr (12/8/14, 12/9/14), consistently reported that there was no “specific intelligence” signaling a pending attack.

Still Not Torture?

I was also interested in whether show hosts were willing to call the techniques described in the report “torture.” Although on occasion some referred to the report as the “so-called torture report,” many of them eventually started to refer to it as the “Senate report on torture” or simply the “torture report”–as it has colloquially become known. But there are noteworthy exceptions.

Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer (12/14/14) was the only host to offer an opinion on this issue. He said the CIA “went too far in the interrogation practices it adopted,” but that it is “hard” for him to “condemn those who were trying to prevent a second attack” after 9/11. Schieffer did not once use “torture” to describe the CIA’s interrogation methods, but euphemistically described them as “ghastly practices.” Schieffer interviewed torture defenders Rep. Mike Rogers, Sen. Saxby Chambliss and former CIA Director Michael Hayden.

The only times Fox News Sunday  host Chris Wallace (12/14/14) even uttered the word “torture” was to ask whether or not the CIA’s activities legally constituted torture. Two of the guests Wallace interviewed helped implement torture: former White House adviser Karl Rove and CIA Deputy Director Jose Rodriguez.

State of the Union host Candy Crowley (12/7/14, 12/14/14) only used “torture” three times in two episodes, largely avoiding using it when speaking to prominent officials or members of the intelligence community: George W. Bush, House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers, fellow committee member Rep. Peter King and military officer Steven Kleinman, who was the only one she interviewed that opposed torture. When interviewing King, Crowley was more interested in asking him about how the CIA can “get its reputation back.” Such softball questions create great platforms for torture hawks like King, who insisted the CIA did an “excellent job” in preventing terrorist attacks.

Appearing on the ABC’s This Week (12/14/14), former CIA Director and torture defender Michael Hayden complained, “No one seems to have read the agency rebuttal or the Republican minority report on what the CIA did.” Why read the Republican minority and CIA reports when news media coverage reads just like those reports?