As New War Rages, Study Finds, Mainstream Media Silences Debate/ FAIR Reports
Published on
Friday, November 14, 2014
by
Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/11/14/new-war-rages-study-finds-mainstream-media-silences-debate
New analysis finds little opposition in mainstream media to latest US military attacks on Middle East nations
While Congress may soon debate the ongoing US wars in Iraq and Syria, a new FAIR study shows that at the critical moments leading up to the escalation of US military action, mainstream media presented almost no debate at all.
The study of key TV news discussion programs from September 7 through 21 reveals that guests who opposed war were scarce.
The study evaluated discussion and debate segments on the Sunday talk shows (CNN's State of the Union, CBS's Face the Nation, ABC's This Week, Fox News Sunday and NBC's Meet the Press), the PBS NewsHour and a sample of cable news programs that feature roundtables and interview segments (CNN's Situation Room, Fox News Channel's Special Report and MSNBC's Hardball).
The key findings:
On the high-profile Sunday talk shows, 89 guests were invited to talk about the war. But just one, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel, could be coded as an anti-war guest.
Guestlists leaned heavily on politicians and military insiders. Current and former US government officials—politicians and White House officials—made up 37 percent of the guestlists. Current and former military officials accounted for 7 percent of sources. Journalists made up 46 percent of the sources.
Democrats outnumbered Republicans, 53-36, mostly due to the heavy presence of Obama administration officials advocating for White House military policy.
The study period covered what should have been a moment of serious debate: From the release of ISIS video beheadings of two American journalists through Obama’s September 10 televised address and right up to the first US airstrikes on Syria.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And that would be the Islamic State.
Suddenly to attack those who would kill the Yazidi are the legitimate governments of Iraq and Syria. Force women to marry, hey. All the better. We show how focused we are against pointless, irrelevant distractions.
I guess the most important thing is to say how bad our domestic enemies are, even if it means we start singing (to the tune of "Those were the days"
, "It's genocide, my friends, we thought it might just end, but here it is, all glorious and supreme. We worship those that kill, and fight those who thwart our will, we're out to win, and that's our common dream."
Or maybe there's actually a massive series of airstrikes against Egypt, Sa'udiyya, Qatar, and Kuwait with massive ground invasions that somehow we don't know about.
Now, I don't like that there are Americans again on the ground in Iraq, and have no great approval for the airstrikes. On the other hand, I'm not going to paint this as unwarranted aggression because it's entirely warranted. To do otherwise is to say that abu Bakr al-Baghdadi should be welcomed guest at the White House, with a nice photo op of Obama having a beer with him. Except that beer is haram and Obama's proper role is to be submissive to his superior. (To al-Baghdadi's "Allahu akbar" I reply, that his Alluhu fubar.)
Lets have a one sided "lack" of transparent debate for acts of war, then have the oligarchy conglomerate go break for a commercial, and then make a commercial saying to get your news source from the oligarchy and the war, because they are covering this issue better than the other oligarchy 
