Politico (10/14/09) published a list of top topics on Glenn Beck's Fox News show, based on a search of Nexis transcripts since the show's January 2009 debut. It's instructive to look at the placement of some individuals, groups and places in the news as an indication of Beck's sense of whom and what his audience should be informed about:

ACORN: 1,224

Van Jones: 267

SEIU: 259

Afghanistan: 97

Iraq: 95

Valerie Jarrett: 52

Mark Lloyd: 50

Al-Qaeda: 50

Bill Ayers: 46

John Holdren: 43

Jeremiah Wright: 42

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 41

Osama Bin Laden: 40

Taliban: 38

When NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Richard Engel recently returned from Afghanistan, he told MSNBC's Morning Joe, "I honestly think it's probably time to start leaving the country." Engel added, "I really don't see how this is going to end in anything but tears."

Engel's comments caused Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz (10/12/09) to raise an eyebrow at a reporter stating an opinion: "That sounds awfully opinionated for a working reporter," wrote Kurtz.

But we had to wonder if what really attracted Kurtz's scrutiny was Engel's stating of an opinion, or the opinion itself?

After all, for years FAIR has documented the phenomenon of journalists stating opinions in support of hawkish U.S. policies with virtual impunity--even when their views were catastrophically in error.

And so we wondered if Kurtz would even have commented if a network news reporter had suggested that the U.S. needed to escalate its military efforts in Afghanistan. We needn't have wondered.

Lara Logan, who holds the same position at CBS News as Engel does at NBC--chief foreign affairs correspondent--may be a more vehement cheerleader for escalation than Engel is for withdrawal. In a recent interview with Bob Orr on CBS News' Political Hotsheet, Logan expressed a disturbing devotion to  Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and chief proponent of escalating the war there: "I don't understand why no one will listen to the man you put your faith in and said he is the guy who is going to do this for us...."

Since Logan too "sounds awfully opinionated for a working reporter," we wonder how it is she escaped Kurtz's scrutiny?

For us, it isn't so much that journalists have and express opinions--the public is better served when we know what reporters are thinking--but we are troubled when  disapproval and despair over the lost standards of journalistic objectivity are trotted out only for reporters whose opinions are at odds with official views.

So we are glad to know of Logan's hero worship, even if it is at odds with the worthwhile  journalistic ethic that says reporters should hold the feet of the powerful to the fire--not massage them.
Corrected version: The original version of this post gave Stanley McChrystal's first name incorrectly.

In most policy debates, the media preference is for a solution in the "center," whatever they define that to be.  A Los Angeles Times headline today on the Beltway debate on Afghanistan reads: "Obama mulls middle ground in Afghanistan war strategy." Like the healthcare debate, the media's version of "the middle" usually means something well to the right of actual public opinion.

In this case, it's even harder to follow than that; as the Times puts it, Obama "suggested he is looking at the middle range of the spectrum, somewhere between a major increase in forces and a large drawdown."

Well that's a rather wide spectrum, isn't it? If you look at polls of the public, there is very little support for sending more troops--and much more support for either keeping troop levels where they are, or decreasing the size of U.S. forces in the country. So the "middle" ground isn't so hard to locate--it's somewhere between decreasing U.S. forces or keeping them at current levels. The fact that the debate in Washington doesn't seem to reflect that is, of course, telling; perhaps a more open media debate would change that.

Huh?

latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-obama-afghan7-2009oct07,0,3693182.story

In the new issue of Time magazine, a debate on Afghanistan is listed in the table of contents this way:

What Should We Do Now? Two Views
Is it time for the U.S. military to turn Afghanistan over, or is time for our troops to stay the course?

The "stay the course" view is presented by Peter Bergen, who argues that critics of the war are all wrong about Afghan history and the Afghan public's view of foreign troops (they don't mind them much): "The objections to an increased U.S. military commitment in South Asia rest on a number of flawed assumptions."  Sending  as many as 40,000 more troops--as the White House seems to favor--is "sound policy."

The opposing view comes from Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. He thinks that the hawks have twisted the argument--- as he puts it:

Hawks on Afghan policy--those who favor defeating Al-Qaeda through a full-blown counterinsurgency strategy involving up to 40,000 more U.S. troops--have divined a politically clever line of argument: Win or get out.

It's a phony choice. The hawks know there's no chance of our simply pulling out of Afghanistan. That option isn't even on the White House table, despite growing public desire to end the war. The true aim of the hawks, or all-outers, in this maneuver is to discredit the real policy alternative--the middle ground.

So he's for the "middle ground," which includes this:

Third, surge about 10,000 new combat forces on top of the 68,000 already authorized and create an additional 5,000 dedicated trainers. Such a surge should be sufficient to handle immediate troubles.

Fourth, start doing what the U.S. does well--deterrence and containment. To deter, we must maintain a small, residual capability in Afghanistan for a few years, as well as offshore air and missile capabilities to inflict harsh punishment when necessary.

So to simplify: The debate is between sending 40,000 more troops, or 10,000--with a "residual capability" in Afghanistan for "a few years." There's "no chance" for any other policy--even though public opinion is clearly against sending more troops. And we're hoping to create democracy in Afghanistan?

USA Today 's left/right op-ed feature today is a doozy-- a "debate" on escalating the Afghan War between regulars Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel. The headline gives it away:

Time to Dig In, Not Bail Out

Forget left or right. Forget politics. Think "war on terror." Bob and Cal agree that now is not the time to abandon the war in Afghanistan.

The back and forth between arch-conservative Thomas and TV leftist Beckel ends with this exchange:

Bob: As much as my liberal instincts want us out of this war, I have to agree with you that it's time to stay and fight. The more dangerous path would be to retreat.

Cal: Among the many things I admire about you, Bob, is that you are often able to overcome your instincts when facts get in the way. Your party was once a keeper of freedom's flame when it came to engaging and defeating Communism. Now we have a new enemy. Nothing would benefit America more than to see Democrats and Republicans unite to defeat this enemy.

The thing that Cal Thomas admires about his liberal sparring partner--his inability to be an actual advocate for the left--is exactly the same quality that the corporate media look for in liberal pundits. It earns you a pat on the head from Cal Thomas, and a regular gig as a TV leftist.

Of deteriorating governmental control in Afghanistan, Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, 9/8/09) says that "a stale witticism calls Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai 'the mayor of Kabul.' Now, not even." He points to the "corrupt, inept and--with massive election fraud--now illegitimate" administration as a "notable work product" of "those who believe in making war":

After 30 years, the results are in: a devastated city....

Meanwhile, a war-stoking mindset is replicating itself at the highest reaches of official Washington--even while polls tell us that the pro-war spin has been losing ground. For the U.S. public, dwindling support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a tipping point. But, as you've probably heard, the war must go on....

Visiting Kabul in late August, I met a lot of wonderful people, doing their best in the midst of grim and lethal realities. The city seemed thick with pessimism.

In comparison, the mainline political discourse about Afghanistan in the United States is blithe. A familiar duet has the news media and the White House asking the perennial question: "Can the war be won?"

The administration insists that the answer is yes. The press is mixed. But they’re both asking the wrong question.

According to Solomon, a question "more relevant, by far," though unlikely to come from corporate media, "would be to ask: Should the U.S. government keep destroying Afghanistan in order to 'save' it?" See FAIR's Action Alert: "Where Is the Afghanistan Debate?: When Public Support Slips, TV Packs in War Boosters" (8/25/09).

Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp (9/4/09) has an update on U.S. papers' "mixed reaction to the controversial Associated Press photo distributed today of a Marine who died in combat in Afghanistan last month."

The picture's inclusion in "a group of images taken by AP photographer Julie Jacobson" predictably was "blasted" by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, whose censure came via "a formal letter of complaint."

Strupp reports that

the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times ran the photo on its website with an AP story about the images, while the Commercial Appeal in Memphis provided an online photo gallery of all of Jacobson's images from the coverage. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin also carried the photo.

The Intelligencer in Wheeling, W.Va., also ran the image, with a lengthy editorial explaining why. It said, in part: "Not all news outlets will choose to publish the picture, distributed by the Associated Press. We feel we owe it to our readers to explain why we have decided to use the image."

While the Intelligencer also felt the need to declare themselves "entirely in support of the war against terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq," Strupp's list of those entirely "withholding the shot of [Lance Cpl. Joshua] Bernard being fatally wounded" is long--including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Boston Herald, Stars and Stripes and the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, which further ingratiated itself with Robert Gates' propaganda machine by condemning such evidence of the reality of war as "in poor taste."

See FAIR's magazine Extra!: "From Self-Censorship to Official Censorship: Ban on Images of Wounded GIs Raises No Media Objections" (3–4/07) by Pat Arnow.

In his Time column this week, Klein writes:

So what should Obama do about Afghanistan? His dilemma isn't as stark as has been posed in recent press accounts, with screamers on the right demanding slavish devotion to the military's wish list and screamers on the left demanding a withdrawal. The U.S. military has become far more ... nuanced when it comes to making requests of presidents. The negotiations about what [Gen. Stanley] McChrystal can officially request will not take place anywhere near the public eye. It is very likely that more troops will be sent--to build and train the Afghan security forces, it will be said. Obama's problems on the left will be mitigated by the fact that most Democrats have also supported this war--as opposed to Iraq's--and have little desire to reverse themselves. They don't want to hurt the President, and they don't want to be perceived as weak on defense come election time.

OK, "screamers on the left" are demanding withdrawal. That would make "the left" the majority of the public, right? Klein counsels that left opposition will have little effect, since "most Democrats have also supported this war--as opposed to Iraq's--and have little desire to reverse themselves."  It's hard to figure out why this is true, or frankly why it would matter--the general public has reversed its opinion quite dramatically, hasn't it?

Apparently that doesn't much matter;  the real issue here are the Democratic politicians, who "don't want to hurt the president, and they don't want to be perceived as weak on defense come election time." Funny, then, that the public doesn't seem to mind being seen as "weak on defense," if that's really how one would describe opposition to escalating the war in Afghanistan.

The Washington Post had another "Topic A" feature on August 31, headlined "Is the War in Afghanistan Worth Fighting?" A crucial debate, to be sure; the Post found one person (Andrew Bacevich) to argue that it is not, which is probably a position close to the majority view of the American public. That position is "balanced" by four contributors who argue the war is worth fighting, in different ways or for different reasons. This imbalance echoes the Post's previous presentation of the Afghanistan debate, showing once again that the paper seems to believe that a public that increasingly sees the war as a lost cause needs to be talked out of that position.

It's worth noting that conservative Post columnist George Will has written today against escalating the war (9/1/09)-- under the headline "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan." While Will calls the idea of a long occupation with increased troop levels "inconceivable," it's worth noting what he's actually for:

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

More bombing, drones and cruise missiles. That's the Post's peacenik.

Media Monitors Network has the latest column from Norman Solomon (8/26/09), in which the longtime analyst of corporate media boosterism for U.S. wars considers a recent swath of stories that "have compared President Johnson's war in Vietnam and President Obama's war in Afghanistan."

True, "the comparisons are often valid," Solomon finds, "but a key parallel rarely gets mentioned--the media's insistent support for the war even after most of the public has turned against it":

This omission relies on the mythology that the U.S. news media functioned as tough critics of the Vietnam War in real time.... In fact, overall, the default position of the corporate media is to bond with war policymakers in Washington--insisting for the longest time that the war must go on....

A similar pattern took shape during Washington’s protracted war in Iraq. Year after year, the editorial positions of major dailies have been much more supportive of the U.S. war effort than the American public.

And today, when "top policymakers for what has become Obama’s Afghanistan war can find their assumptions mirrored in the editorials of the nation’s mighty newspapers," Solomon reiterates that "opinion polls are showing a dramatic trend against the war"--noting how an August 13–17 ABC News-Washington Post poll "found that 51 percent of the public says the war in Afghanistan isn't worth fighting."

See the recent FAIR Action Alert: "Where Is the Afghanistan Debate?: When Public Support Slips, TV Packs in War Boosters" (8/25/09).

Stars and Stripes reporters Charlie Reed, Kevin Baron and Leo Shane III (8/27/09) have an update on the military paper's recent exposure of Iraqi National Congress fabricators the Rendon Group helping the Pentagon in Screening New Embeds in Afghanistan "to determine whether their past coverage has portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light."

A reporter profile obtained by Stars and Stripes "evaluates work published as recently as May, indicating that the rating practice did not in fact cease last October" as claimed by a Pentagon representative, and "explicit suggestions contained in the Rendon profiles detailing how best to manipulate reporters coverage... directly contradict the Pentagon’s stated policies"--purporting to be "in no way intended to prevent release of embarrassing, negative or derogatory information."

Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters' coverage is being graded as "positive," "neutral" or "negative."

Moreover, the documents--recent confidential profiles of the work of individual reporters prepared by a Pentagon contractor--indicate that the ratings are intended to help Pentagon image-makers manipulate the types of stories that reporters produce while they are embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

One reporter on the staff of one of America's pre-eminent newspapers is rated in a Pentagon report as "neutral to positive" in his coverage of the U.S. military. Any negative stories he writes "could possibly be neutralized" by feeding him mitigating quotes from military officials.

But really, what are the odds of that working?

In his Week in Review piece wondering if Obama's Afghanistan policy is akin to LBJ and Vietnam, New York Times reporter Peter Baker notes that the public mood is seeping into the media:

That growing disenchantment in the countryside is increasingly mirrored in Washington, where liberals in Congress are speaking out more vocally against the Afghan war and newspapers are filled with more columns questioning America’s involvement.

Newspapers are filled with what now? It doesn't feel that way to me, but surely Baker must have some evidence. Which he does:

The cover of the latest Economist is headlined "Afghanistan: The Growing Threat of Failure."

Richard N. Haass, a former Bush administration official turned critic, wrote in the New York Times last week that what he once considered a war of necessity has become a war of choice. While he still supports it, he argued that there are now alternatives to a large-scale troop presence, like drone attacks on suspected terrorists, more development aid and expanded training of Afghan police and soldiers.

A British magazine and a Times op-ed from someone who supports the war? That's not exactly what I was expecting when I was told newspapers were "filled" with dissenting views.

As if journalists "embedding" with U.S. troops isn't troubling enough, Stars and Stripes is reporting that reporters looking to embed with U.S. troops in Afghanistan will face some troubling screening:

As more journalists seek permission to accompany U.S. forces engaged in escalating military operations in Afghanistan, many of them could be screened by a controversial Washington-based public relations firm contracted by the Pentagon to determine whether their past coverage has portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light.

U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan acknowledged to Stars and Stripes that any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress. That opposition group, reportedly funded by the CIA, furnished much of the false information about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion.

We're told that the review is not designed to exclude reporters who might be too critical, though in practice that is how it's been used:

U.S. Army officials in Iraq engaged in a similar vetting practice two months ago, when they barred a Stars and Stripes reporter from embedding with a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division because the reporter "refused to highlight" good news that military commanders wanted to emphasize.

Back in May, CBS' 60 Minutes aired a terrible report on the Air Force's use of drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan-- see FAIR's action alert for all the details. CBS never responded to the criticism, but they did re-air the segment this past Sunday, without any major changes. To let CBS know how you feel about this one-sided reporting, here's the contact info:

CONTACT:
CBS
60 Minutes
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

Email: 60m@cbsnews.com
Phone: (212) 975-3247

The escalation of the Afghanistan war is the "Topic A" discussion on the Washington Post op-ed page on Sunday (it's a regular feature where they ask a panel of Important People to weigh in on an issue of the day).

The title was "How Many Troops for Afghanistan?"--one can already spot the problem with that--but the panel they assembled left  a lot to be desired. On the one hand, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (a strong critic of escalation) was given space to make his argument. But his presenced was 'balanced' by four others, three of whom are definitely pro-escalation (they quibble over the details, perhaps) and one pollster who addressed the public opinion problems--i.e., the Afghanistan war isn't popular.

So besides Kucinich, the Post gave readers former Bush and Reagan aide Ed Rogers (escalation "is necessary to avoid the political and security debacle that would arise from an American failure there"), Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center ("The public opinion climate for sending more troops is difficult--but not impossible"), Harvard professor--and former special assistant to George W. Bush--Meghan Sullivan (Obama "should reject three arguments currently made against accepting a recommendation for more troops"), and Georgetown professor Andrew Natsios (stability in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan "can not be achieved without substantially more U.S. and allied troops conducting a classic counterinsurgency campaign to take and hold territory and protect the civilian population.")

Some debate.