Reporting on Trump’s Afghan Escalation Omits Dead Afghan Civilians
NOVANEWS
By Adam Johnson
FAIR
As President Donald Trump tries to make the case for staying indefinitely in Afghanistan, the stakes for those actually living there are rarely broached by US corporate media.
In dozens of write-ups, recaps and reports on Trump’s “major” Afghan War speech, almost no outlets took time out to note the plight or condition of the people the US is nominally there to save. The New York Times (8/21/17, 8/22/17), Washington Post (8/21/17), Chicago Tribune (8/22/17), CNN (8/21/17, 8/21/17), NBC News (8/21/17), ABC News (8/21/17) and CBS News (8/21/17), among others, didn’t mention the Afghan death toll at all in their summary of events in the region.
Almost all, however, reserved airtime and column inches to mention the number of US soldiers and cost t...