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Yes, it is news, but you wouldn’t know it if you watch ABC, CBS, or NBC.
From CBS, NBC evening news broadcasts ignored IG report finding illegal actions in Justice Department hiring practices; ABC devoted less than 30 seconds:
Despite the potential implications for U.S. counterterrorism efforts, all three networks ignored the finding that "an experienced career terrorism prosecutor" was denied a counterterrorism assignment while "a much more junior attorney who lacked any experience in counterterrorism issues and who officials believed was not qualified for the position" was hired instead.
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Selected bits from Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner by Brian Stelter:
Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever.
“If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts,” Ms. Logan said.
CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.
Ms. Logan said she begged for months to be embedded with a group of Navy Seals, and when she came back with the story, a CBS producer said to her, “One guy in uniform looks like any other guy in a uniform.”
Both Ms. Logan and Mr. McCarthy noted that more coalition soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in May than in Iraq. No American television network has a full-time correspondent in Afghanistan, although CNN recently said it would open a bureau in Kabul.
Journalists at all three American television networks with evening newscasts expressed worries that their news organizations would withdraw from the Iraqi capital after the November presidential election. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity in order to avoid offending their employers.Does this story give you a sense of deja vu? Well, perhaps this is the reason why.
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From Military Propaganda Pushed Me Off TV by Jeff Cohen:
The biggest villain here is not Rumsfeld or the Pentagon. It’s the TV networks. In the land of the First Amendment, it was their choice to shut down debate and journalism.
No government agency forced MSNBC to repeatedly feature the hawkish generals unopposed. Or fire Phil Donahue. Or smear weapons expert Scott Ritter. Or blacklist former attorney general Ramsey Clark. It was top NBC/MSNBC execs, not the Feds, who imposed a quota system on the Donahue staff requiring two pro-war guests if we booked one anti-war advocate — affirmative action for hawks.
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I have probably seen five or six television news reports on the grounding of American Airlines MD80 planes. After seeing that many news reports you would think I would know what’s going on. Actually, I don’t have a clue. All I know is that passengers are stranded because bundles of wire are being inspected because little plastic ties that hold the bundles together are supposed to be one inch apart and maybe some of them are not.
Thanks to the detailed reporting of television news I don’t know very much about this situation. I don’t know why this is such a big deal at this particular time. Why wasn’t it a big deal a month ago? Did the little plastic tie things move all of a sudden? I don’t know if any of the landing gear failed at some time in the past. I don’t know if there have been any accidents because of this problem. I don’t know why it seems to be confined to American Airlines and not other carriers. Perhaps these things are being reported somewhere, but they weren’t on any of the reports I saw. Why not?
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