Even I hardly write about the war anymore.
According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has slipped to 3 percent of all American print and broadcast news as of last week, falling from 25 percent as recently as last September.
There are a lot of reasons that the war is off the media’s radar.
I asked Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, how a war that had cost thousands of lives and over $1 trillion was losing news salience.
“There is a cold and sad calculation that readers/viewers aren’t that interested in the war, whether because they are preoccupied with paying $4 for a gallon of gas and avoiding foreclosure, or because they have Iraq fatigue,” he wrote in an e-mail message, adding that The Times stays on the story as part of an implied contract with its readers.
It might be part conspiracy theory but I actually think that the Bigfoot media was told that we’re going to wind down the war and that it will cause less national humiliation if they don’t cover every bloody detail of how our occupation unravels. It’s simply untrue that the American people have lost interest in the war. It’s still among the top two or three things on the public’s mind. What’s changed is that the media now dedicates only 3% of their coverage to the catastrophe over there. That means bloggers have a lot less information to work with, too. But another problem is that we’ve won the argument over the war. We won the argument but we didn’t win enough political power to end the war. And that means we all just have to sit in a holding pattern, waiting for a new president. The fact that John McCain is running on an argument that has already been settled (and not in his favor) is what makes it totally implausible that he will be our next president.
I can kind of mark the day that the antiwar movement died. It was the day that MoveOn.org ran their strategically moronic BetrayUs advertisement in the New York Times. That was the day that the Democratic Party (which is, after all, one of the two Establishment parties in this country) had to divorce itself from the movement to end the war. MoveOn.org showed a profound misunderstanding of the power structures that govern Washington. The Democratic Party, as an institution, was never going to countenance the vilification of our most important general in the field. Nor will they ever fully come to grips with the profound moral horrors they have been complicit in allowing. The Democratic Party is merely a vehicle for change. It can only be moved slowly and it will always gravitate back to the center. The most important task of the last three years has been taking the Democratic Party out of the hands of the people that have been running it since Bill Clinton won the nomination in 1992. That was the real battle. And that is where the most positive change will come from. The new party, along with the politicians that have been elected since the argument over Iraq was won, will govern in a new way. It won’t be revolutionary, but it will be much more responsible. That is our gift to our Vets on this Memorial Day.
It would be interesting to know if those news organizations who continue to cover the war, including foreign, and foreign language news organizations, have seen a increase in online traffic.
speech in New Mexico with “God bless you, and may God continue to bless the United States of America”.
I was in another room so I didn’t see if he was also wearing a flag pin in his lapel.
I decry the increased use of religion in his speeches. He’s my candidate, too.
That was Mrs. Clinton’s punch line, wasn’t it? So now it begins to dawn, as the sun sets. Sorry, it was inevitable.
associated with GW Bush.
I don’t know that the antiwar movement died on the day of the "Betray Us" ad — moronic is about the best you can call it — but it certainly got good and buried because of that. So, thanks, MoveOn.org.
Why do you think the Republicans were so desperate to bury it? Shame on the Democrats who went along with that. (note, Hillary voted against that, Obama for censuring MoveOn)
Yes, I think it’s quite clear now that Hillary loves the anti-war movement and is an avid supporter of them, while Obama is an evil bloodthirsty hawk.
Well, once the Hillary/Obama drama is officially over there will be all that empty airtime/news space to fill. Maybe the media can see their way back to some meaningful coverage.
It started with the successful struggle to put Howard Dean in charge of the DNC.
I’ve a simpler explanation: media coverage of the war has declined as the complexity of the situation became more obvious. Many modern reporters lack the aptitude or training needed to report on complex issues, or believe that their viewers lack the capability to understand complex issues. Now that the situation in Iraq is basically “a tangled, bloody mess” that doesn’t fit any of the normal good guy/bad guy or he said/she said narratives, they can barely report on it at all. Most Americans, however, understand “it’s a tangled, bloody mess” just fine – thus, the continued support for peace.
I have an even simpler explanation – nothing is going to change until the next president is elected so the national media sees little reason to report on the weekly deaths of American soldiers, much like it doesn’t report on the murders in local cities unless a celebrity is somehow involved.
Perhaps if Babs, Jenna and Chelsea were to be drafted into the army…
Does that really apply? The national media still reports on plenty of things that aren’t going to change until the next President’s elected. It lets them play the he said/she said and good guys/bad guys game with incredibly simplified, hypothetical situations.
I’m sure that the lack of a draft has something to do with it. I was #1 in Nixon’s draft lottery. I managed to avoid it for a couple of years but couldn’t find a decent job because the employer would look at my date of birth (by which you got your draft number) and laugh at me. I finally “volunteered for the draft” and soon after I’d signed the papers Nixon stopped the draft and said he was going with the all-volunteer army. In fact, I was in the first “all-volunteer” basic training unit at Fort Dix. If you’re near a collection of NYTimes microfilms, there was a front-page story about our company in January 1972.
And what a company it was. There were guys from NYC who went into the army to get off heroin. There were a few guys there because the judge said “the army or jail.” There was a developmentally challenged farmboy from Pennsylvania who almost shot my head off accidentally. There was one poor kid who was the guy the drill sergeants (and then his brothers in arms) picked on because he wasn’t good on the speed marches. I remember one particular march out to the ranges and back through an ice storm. The guy was crying. When we got back to the barracks he took his boots off. His feet were bloody messes. They had given him the wrong size boots. They took him out of the unit that night and we never saw him again.
What we were was the devalued workforce from which the military always finds its cannon fodder.
to borrow a quote from george orwell: “The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”
while the ending may not come quick, this “war” has been lost in the public’s opinion.
of course, this fact seems lost to the presumptive RATpulican’t presidential candidate, who used the occassion of his memorial day speech to devolve into the tired rhetoric of BushCo™:
l’m beyond weary of hearing the disenchanted hillary supporters threaten to vote for this man as if they actually believe he’s a better choice.
the choice is quite clear: vote for the future or more of the same.
Finally! I thought I was the only one who thought the MoveOn ad was detestable. And incredibly stupid. But it seems like all I read at the time were liberals up in arms (pun intended) defending MoveOn for its kindergarten stunt. Just because the words rhyme doesn’t mean you should rhyme them.
Interestingly, I think Obama has “moved on” and brought the activists into his campaign.
I never actually saw the ad.
There were plenty of dumb stunts done to stop the Vietnam War and it never seemed to make a difference. John and Yoko had a full-page ad in the New York Times that said “The War Is Over If You Want It,” which seemed to do nothing but give permission for people to ignore it. I sure that wasn’t their intention.
If the Iraq debacle is anything like the Vietnam war there won’t be much of a relationship between the people in the streets and the end of the war. I was there at the peace marches and candlelight vigils. People got angry, but mostly at us dirty hippies and commies. By the time I’d been in the army for six months it was common wisdom that things were going to wind down. Before they found out I could type I was going to be driving the deuce and a quarters over there. They were losing lots of truck drivers back then, the rumor being that they were moving things out, not in.
In November 1972, thanks to a lot of skullduggery, Nixon was reelected in a landslide. He had a plan. And most people still supported the war. And then through my last year in the army (1973) Vietnam faded farther into the background as Watergate crowded the death and destruction out of the evening news. Some of the non-com lifers would come up to me, a PFC known for his anti-war position, and admit that I was right about the war and that it was a failure. That was rather amazing. I got an early out to go back to college, finished in two semesters then went out to California. A recession, so I got a job at the VA Hospital. One night Nixon made a speech, me and a buddy sat in a bar on Clement Street and watched him get into a helicopter and fly away.
The next morning at the hospital someone had stolen his picture off the wall. Thus to tyrants.
And then I dated a few women and went to a few clubs and suddenly there were helicopters plucking people off the roof of the American embassy. And it was over. The anti-war demonstrations had been over for years. Somebody somewhere had decided the war was over.
Talk on the war in Iraq needs some re-framing. ONE BILLION gallons a year, not including private contractors.
as coincidence would have it, today is the 100 year anniversary of the discovery of oil in the ME:
May 26, 1908: Mideast Oil Discovered — There Will Be Blood
a rather inauspicious occasion l would say.
Astonishing to see that and recognize the impact on this globe in just 100 yrs.
And while the MSM will cover the price of gas and the foreclosures they never tie in the fact that those things flow FROM the war. They’ll cover the collapse of a bridge, but never mention that monies that could have saved it are being spent, hand over fist, on the war.
So true. Only the stupidest loser believes the war was fought for democracy anymore, but there is a meme out there that somehow this war somehow is being fought for “our” access to oil, the “our” being the American people. In point of fact, most of that oil is sold to Europe, India or China, South Korea and Japan. However, much of it passes through international corporate control, giving additional money to the BPs and Exxons of the world. The war was fought by an oil prince (Bush) for the oil companies. The war has only devalued the dollar, making oil more expensive, and encouraged the speculators and hedge fund operators to gamble and raise the price of it.
Your stories bring back so many of my memories of the times, thanks.
I guess my original point with the link was that with the price at the pumpm today and the threat of $15 a gallon the result is the American public have their ears on and may well listen to the logic. It’s a key we didn’t necessarily have the equal of with Vietnam.
Susan, as another example, all those National Guardsmen in Iraq while we have hurricanes, floods and fires rage across the country.
It was the day that MoveOn.org ran their strategically moronic BetrayUs advertisement in the New York Times. That was the day that the Democratic Party
Now, that’s a little unfair. Do you really think that, had that ad not run, the congress critters would have agressively quetsioned Saint Petreus and his almighty surge? Would they have been more confrontational with Bush? Would the howler monkeys of the right screamed any less should anyone badmouth the “success” of the surge?
No. No. And No. Congress has about 11% approval rating because it has abdicated its responsibility and not done what the people sent them to D.C. to do: end the war.
This whole Petreus “controversy” is not really a controversy. Objectively speaking, there is no rational reason why this advertisement caused the ruckus it caused. After all, Republicans say these things all the time. No, it’s only a controversy because Bush and the Republicans needed a distraction and the wimpy Democrats are always there to oblige.
No. Booman is attempting to rewrite history to absolve weak politicians from their mistakes. The Democratic party failed to stand up to Bush the last few years. And BooMan and the Democratic party would rather blame their putative allies on the Left rather than admitting that they are scared shitless anytime a Republican yells “boo” and it is them that gave in to everything Bush wanted.
To Blame Move On for the continuance of the war is total crap. Are you all trying to say that criticizing a general is a no no…..Come on now people the war is wrong and nothing you say intellectually can justify this bloodshed. I was in Nam and it was never right for what ever political reason anyone wanted to dream up (you don’t kill innocent women and children for some dumb political dream). I’m a Vet and I’m saying B.S. to all these false arguments.
no, I’m not blaming moveon for the continuation of the war. I’m blaming them for killing the antiwar movement.
There was barely an anti-war movement prior to the Petraeus ad. I actually see very little difference since then.
The ad was tactically, strategically and financially stupid but to blame Move-on for the “death” of the anti-war movement? That’s a stretch to put it kindly.
Much like during ‘Nam, we were only going to get a few fearless congress-critters to carry the anti-war banner. We’ve still got those few. The rest of the critters will wait until they can feel the anti-war current in popular opinion shift.
The “success” of the surge has been to quiet the violence in Baghdad enough so that the media– which finds covering the war almost impossible– feels vindicated in focusing on the presidential campaigns.
Primarily, we need a strong plan for withdrawal that (a) won’t mean admitting “defeat” and (b) will offer some assurance of Iraq not blowing up into hyper-violent chaos too soon.
The only reason a fairly innocuous advert criticizing the second in charge in the field (Fallon was in charge–Petreus was 2nd in the chain of authority–you fell for another trick) is because you LET them sidetrack the country on this silly theater. At the moment the opposition party was to decide the fate of the war the wimpy Democrats let the neocons and the media substitute the discussion of the apporpriateness of an advert in the NYT for any real debate on the war. Booman evidently took the bait and is still going with it. He and the strong Democrats would have stood up to Bush and ended the war (or at least blogged about it more) if the bad lefties wouldn’t have scared patriotic America with their New York Times adverts. Or so they want you to believe.
The Democrats that went along with the head fake about the Petreus ad are as deeply guilty of violating their duties as legislators as the Republicans. Democrats, (evidently like BooMan) used MoveOn as a convenient scapegoat for their own inaction and lack of courage to stop a war. Even when the vast majority of people were against it the Democrats did nothing and had the audacity of blaming the “left” for creating an environment where they could do nothing. .
Now that you’ve defeated Hillary do you think you have to turn Obama into Mr. Moderate and are you now coming after the firebrands? Is this how you plan to show that Obama is “tough” and a moderate? If so, no thanks. I don’t need a pretend tough Obama. Especially if he is going to prove his “toughness” by beating up on the left.
Sorry BooMan. You’re way off on this one and way off on your history. It’s the Democratic party that is most responsible for not ending this war. The party doesn’t want you to talk about that though and you are obliging: you’re focusing on the minor differences between two center-right Democrats at the moment. There is a reason the Democratic legislature has the lowest approval in history. You are aiding and abetting them and providing cover. You just bought in to their silly excuse for doing nothing: the dirty fucking hippies on the left.
The Day the anti-war movement died . . . .
Was the day that those on the radical Left went too far and took out an advert that was heard round the country. The radical Leftists criticized the second in command in the Iraq war, and the President’s hand-picked man (after about 4 other men were fired). The Leftists claimed that the General’s remarks were theater and were putting a political spin on the facts on the ground. The radical Leftists used a pun and went too far. Because of this pun–American foreign policy was determined for the next 2 to 3 years.
And the Democratic congressmen were hobbled from ending the war they so desperately wanted to end. If it wasn’t for this advert, clearly the Democratic legislators would have won the showdown they were preparing for.
C’mon. If the anti-war movement died that day it died because it became obvious that the Democrats had no intention of ending the war. They were simply hoping the war would be lost and they could win some elections by claiming to be against the war. It wasn’t lost because the “Left” was too radical. It was lost because it became evident that America’s system of government was failing.