Writing for a collective media criticism blog in Michigan (MediaMouse.org, 1/15/09), Jeff Smith states that, “if the U.S. public is ever going to hold the U.S. government accountable for its policy in Afghanistan, then we need to challenge how the U.S. news media reports on that policy.” But he also knows that “for many Americans most of their news media comes from local TV news or the monopoly daily newspaper in their community.” With this in mind his group has “monitored three local TV stations and the Grand Rapids Press” for various periods:
Our first study of the local news coverage of the U.S. policy in Afghanistan began the day U.S. warplanes started dropping bombs in October 2001. We conducted a 75-day study of the three Grand Rapids based TV stations’ coverage of what was then exclusively referred to as “The War on Terror.” All three of the TV stations used slick graphics and ominous music to intro their stories. In addition, each station came up with its own titles related to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, such as “America Strikes Back,” “America at War” and “The War on Terrorism.”
The type of stories that were presented on the local TV stations either focused on what the U.S. military was doing, the response from the Taliban or the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Much of the footage that was used was provided by the Department of Defense…. This type of coverage framed the war from the U.S. perspective with limited information on what was happening to the Afghan people. Even more absent than stories on civilian casualties was the lack of any reporting that provided historical context to U.S. policy in that region of the world in recent decades.
Smith and co. conclude that “if the public relies on the local news media for understanding U.S. policy in Afghanistan, that people will have limited knowledge of that policy and a perspective that is primarily through the eyes of U.S. officials,” and, looking forward, “if an effort to challenge the incoming administration’s position on Afghanistan is to be successful, it must include as part of its strategy both an understanding of how public perception of Afghanistan has been created and a plan to challenge how Afghanistan is being framed in the news.”
For a national perspective, see the FAIR magazine Extra!: “The Propaganda of Silence: Losing Interest in Afghanistan’s Plight” (11-12/06) by James Ingalls & Sonali Kolhatkar
I have to say, up until well into last year, Afghanistan was pretty much an afterthought in much of the “progressive” media … including here. Almost all the focus was on Iraq.
Concomitant with that, most “anti-war” groups were just that … against *one* war. Their silence on Afghanistan was deafening.
That’s changed, fortunately, to a large degree … but whereas Iraq has always been seen as an illegal war, the opposition to Afghanistan seems to be based more on what’s happened in the last year or so than on its being illegal to begin with, don’t you think?
War is war. Dead is dead. You speak out against it from the get go. Every moment you don’t another innocent dies.