Iron Man 3 and the Art of Missing the Point
Hollywood’s latest superhero movie has a political message that’s not particularly hard to decipher. Yet fail to decipher it New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis evidently did.
North Korea Rattles Sabers While U.S. Drops Fake Nukes
Seemingly out of nowhere, North Korea became the top news story at the beginning of April. Tensions between the United States and North Korea were on the rise after new supreme leader Kim Jong Un conducted several missile and weapons tests, beginning at the end of 2012. The threats, bluster and provocations that followed led […]
License to Kill
Early this spring—in a five-page spread headlined “So, Who Can We Kill?”—Time (4/1/13) reported on pressures putting “Obama and his drone war on the defensive.” Notably, much of the article focused on the Authorization for Use of Military Force that zipped through Congress three days after 9/11. During more than a decade of Washington’s wars, […]
Cutting the Military Budget Is a Problem…for the Left?
The Washington Post presents a “paradox” wrapped in a “conundrum” inside a “quandary”–all on top of a big heaping of right-wing policy advice for the left.
Reporting ‘Says’ Rather Than ‘Says It Believes’ Could Make a War of Difference
The front page of the New York Times had a very definitive headline on Syria and chemical weapons–but when you read the actual story, a much more ambiguous picture emerged.
Jeff Cohen on Media Missing the Costs of Militarism
“Today there’s an elephant in the room: a huge, yet ignored, issue that largely explains why Social Security is now on the chopping block…. That problem is U.S. militarism and perpetual war.”
North Korea’s Attack Plan: Apocalypse Never Mind
It didn’t take long for TV coverage of North Korea to enter the “Retired General Sketches Out War Games on a Big Map” phase. But a recent example of the genre on CNN demonstrated only the alarmism seems to be the order of the day.
Keeping the Government’s Secrets
Withholding important news over supposed national security concerns is nothing new. And in many cases, no official request is even needed—the decision-makers seem to have internalized the notion that keeping the government’s secrets is part of their job.
Celebrating French Intervention in Mali
The French military commenced Operation Serval against separatist rebels in Northern Mali on January 11, 2013. The air and ground intervention was undertaken with the cooperation and support of the United States, as well as several European and African states. U.S. press reporting has provided a simplistic account of the intervention as a heroic effort […]
Time’s Rethink on Drones
The new issue of Time has a pretty interesting piece on the debate over Obama’s drone program. One way to measure the shift in official opinion is to consider that a little more than a year ago, the magazine hardly seemed to think there was any debate at all.
Looking Back at Iraq With…Michael Gordon?
Ten years ago, a front-page New York Times story helped mislead us into war with the idea that Iraq was trying to procure special aluminum tubes for its nuclear weapons program. Last night, one of the PBS NewsHour’s two expert journalists to look back on Iraq was the guy who co-authored that piece.
Howard Fineman Looks Back on Iraq
Howard Fineman–formerly at Newsweek, now at Huffington Post–tries to come to terms with his Iraq War failures, seemingly with good intentions. But he falls short of addressing a record that shows a remarkable level of enthusiasm for the job of advocating for Bush’s “eyes-on-the-prize decisiveness.”
NYT: Odd Memories of Iran/Contra, Obama First Term
The New York Times’ Michael Shear suggests that Rep. Rand Paul’s criticism of Obama’s drone attacks are nothing out of the ordinary–but he takes a strange trip down memory lane to make the case.
Killing a Citizen: NYT, Awlaki and ‘Muddying the Moral Clarity’
The Obama administration has not wanted to explain in any great detail how it justified killing an American citizen in Yemen. But there were apparently plenty of current and former officials willing to explain their case to the New York Times.
Time’s Ticking Clock on War With Iran
Nowhere does Time’s Massimo Calabresi mention one rather inconvenient fact: There is no evidence that Iran is actually pursuing a nuclear weapon. Regular inspections have failed to turn up any evidence of that.
Republican Pals and Their ‘National Security’ Passion
Time magazine has a profile this week of Senate Republican buddies John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and one passage really stands out–not for what it reveals about them, really, but about the media. Michael Crowley writes: Graham and McCain have been friends for more than a decade, a partnership born of their shared passion for […]
SoundBites March 2013
If It Weren’t for Those Meddling Iranians “This demonstrates the ever pernicious Iranian meddling in other countries in the region.” —unnamed U.S. official complaining to Reuters (1/28/13) about Iran allegedly sending arms to Yemen, where the U.S. is conducting a secret drone war Extreme Weather, Unexplained NBC Nightly News (1/13/13) asked a serious question, […]
Oscar Rights Some Historical Wrongs, Creates Some New Ones
Many have exposed the fictions of Argo; Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir described the film as “a propaganda fable.” But when the Academy chose Argo and almost ignored Zero Dark Thirty, I cheered.
The Pentagon’s Budget Crunch: No Dissenting Views
The Washington Post had a whole piece devoted to yet another round of complaints from military leaders–without a single comment from anyone who might take the view that cutting military spending would not be such a disaster.
ABC Botches the Brennan Hearing
TV news is often not all that informative. Sometimes that’s because the reports are so short–a few hundred words. But then there are TV reports that manage to use their short space to garble the details of a story completely. ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl’s piece about the Senate confirmation hearing for Obama’s CIA pick John Brennan fit into the latter category.
