Eric Boehlert: Committed to doomsday narrative, media downplay evacuation triumph

[babylonsister]

Committed to doomsday narrative, media downplay evacuation triumph
What happened to "optics"?
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago


snip//

And they were wrong.

“In fact, it didn’t take 2 weeks to evacuate 50,000. It took 10 days,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted in response to Ward. “Lots of work still to do, but it might be time for a bit of a reassessment by the media of this operation given the actual results.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for journalists to acknowledge that their assessments of Kabul have been badly undercut by the stunning evacuation success.

For the first 10 days of the refugee crisis, the media obsessed over "optics" and how they were "disaster" for Biden. Suddenly though, the press shows little interest dwelling on the optics of successfully extricating nearly 100,000 people without a single U.S. casualty. Instead, the press remains married to its narrative.

That early media emphasis on optics was all consuming. “President Biden's Reassurances on Afghanistan Contradict Chaotic Images on the Ground, Capping Week of Bad Optics For His Administration,” CNN announced.

According to the New York Times, the optics were so bad they threatened to doom Biden’s entire presidency. “The chaotic endgame of the American withdrawal has undercut some of the most fundamental premises of President Biden’s presidency,” the paper claimed, in a page-one piece that implied the Democrat was incompetent, void of empathy, and “struggling to assert command over world events.”

Those turned out to be hollow claims, given the U.S.’s commitment to evacuating so many people this month, and nearly 20,000 on Tuesday alone.

more...

https://pressrun.media/p/committed-to-doomsday-narrative-media

[True Blue American]

1. One of a very few who are telling the truth.

Nicole with her,” 95% of the people will be with Biden, 95% of the press will be against him.

We have John Avalon with his Fact Checker. Reliable Sources is pretty good.

Jake Tapper is a disgrace with all his right wing guests. Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell need to be retired.

[madaboutharry]

2. The biggest disappointment is Richard Engel.

He has been seriously unprofessional with his “I’m replacing facts with my emotions” reporting.

It almost seems like he is annoyed he can’t hang out in Afghanistan forever.

[spanone]

3. K&R

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

4. The media have been ready to pounce on Biden since he was inaugurated.

They were in severe withdrawal after four years of daily chaos as TFG lurched from self-created crisis to crisis. Then Biden comes in and suddenly things are going smoothly. Not perfectly, but smoothly. Yes, the first days of the evacuation were chaotic, but since then it has become reasonably orderly, or as orderly as an evacuation of 80,000 people can be.

Reporters taste blood. They are going to make their careers on this event, they think. All they have to do is focus solely on the negatives and ignore the incredible accomplishment of moving so many people safely out of a war torn country.

I feel sad for the families of the four soldiers. They bid their loved one goodbye with the expectation of their safe return, based on what the safe passage the Taliban had agreed to. Then ISIS (which TFG claims to have wipe out, single-handedly of course) swoops in and begins their campaign of terror. Let's hope ISIS is neutralized before they can do any more damage.

[emmaverybo]

5. Since before he was inaugurated. NT

[Moebym]

6. "Void of empathy"

This one really pisses me off.

The treatment of Biden by the media is borderline yellow journalism, in my opinion. They've dispensed with journalistic objectivity and chosen emotion over facts. And how does that help anyone, Afghans included?