In Afghan Debate, Few Antiwar Op-Eds: Elite papers marginalize public opposition

In Afghan Debate, Few Antiwar Op-Eds
Elite papers marginalize public opposition
By Steve Rendall
December 2009


So where’s the wide-ranging Afghanistan War debate in the media?

The need for broad public debate over Afghanistan was echoed in September by Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Adm. Mike Mullen. Citing popular opposition to the war, Mullen called for a broad debate to take a “hard look” at the policy. “I’ve seen the public opinion polls saying that a majority of Americans don’t support the effort at all,” Mullen told an American Legion convention in Louisville, Ky (Washington Post, 8/26/09). “I say, good. Let’s have that debate, let’s have that discussion.”

But according to a new FAIR study of the op-ed pages of the two leading U.S. newspapers, rather than airing a full range of voices on the war, prominent media have downplayed proponents of withdrawal in favor of a debate that reflects the narrow range of elite, inside-Washington opinion.

FAIR’s study looked at all opinion columns in the New York Times and the Washington Post during the first 10 months of 2009 that addressed what the U.S. should do in the Afghanistan War. Columns were counted as antiwar if they called for withdrawal or clearly called into question the need or rationale for the war. Columns that supported continuing the war were counted as pro-war; these were divided into those that endorsed the idea of escalating the war and those that advocated some sort of alternative strategy, including reducing the number of troops.

Both newspapers marginalized antiwar opinion to different degrees. Of the New York Times’ 43 columns on the Afghanistan War, 36 supported the war and only seven opposed it—five times as many columns to war supporters as to opponents. Of the paper’s pro-war columns, 14 favored some form of escalation, while 22 argued for pursuing the war differently.

In the Washington Post, pro-war columns outnumbered antiwar columns by more than 10 to 1: Of 67 Post columns on U.S. military policy in Afghanistan, 61 supported a continued war, while just six expressed antiwar views. Of the pro-war columns, 31 were for escalation and 30 for an alternative strategy.

Read the full article at:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3949