Thursday, July 26, 2018

After One Year MSNBC Covered 'Stormy Daniels' 455 Times, 'War In Yemen' 0

Saudi Arabia has been leading a series of airstrikes against the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi militants since March 26. Above, a Saudi soldier fired a mortar at the Saudi border with Yemen on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

FAIR: ACTION ALERT: It’s Been Over a Year Since MSNBC Has Mentioned US War in Yemen

Why is the No. 1 outlet of alleged anti-Trump #resistance completely ignoring his most devastating war?

As FAIR has noted before (1/8/18, 3/20/18), to MSNBC, the carnage and destruction the US and its Gulf Monarchy allies are leveling against the poorest country in the Arab world is simply a non-issue.

On July 2, a year had passed since the cable network’s last segment mentioning US participation in the war on Yemen, which has killed in excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over a million cases of cholera. The US is backing a Saudi-led bombing campaign with intelligence, refueling, political cover, military hardware and, as of March, ground troops. None of this matters at all to what Adweek (4/3/18) calls “the network of the Resistance,” which has since its last mention of the US’s role in the destruction of Yemen found time to run over a dozen segments highlighting war crimes committed by the Syrian and Russian governments in Syria.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: As I have mentioned more than once in the past. My beef with the media is not on what they cover, but what they choose to not to cover. This story on MSNBC' s lack of coverage of the Yemen war is unfortunately just one of many examples on how news coverage is often skewed to cover a certain political agenda, while ignoring all other news stories.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Msnbc and cnn are the scum of opinion TV (it's not news. It's certainly not journalism. It's people paid to shovel their opinions into your face and the more outrageous what they claim the more people watch, the more money flows)

Outrage, Inc and Opinion, Inc.

How about this: an organisation with NEWS in their name should have actual news and actual journalism for say 50% of air time. Is that too much to ask for in terms of regulation? Otherwise their products /product labels are misleading.

They are misleading consumers and inciting violence in turn. How this is not a billion dollar lawsuit waiting for them.. and no. .freedom of speech doesn't cover private business. You've seen that thousand of times before. Hold them all accountable. Every "news" anchor, "journalist".. why should they get to pull 7 figure salaries while flinging their poo in our faces and telling us this is the truth? They are -lying-, misinforming and causing harm to their viewers and the nation. All channels and stations should be hold accountable...not excluding Fox here although they've been better over the last years.


Daniel said...

"Why is the No. 1 outlet of alleged anti-Trump #resistance completely ignoring his most devastating war?"

Yemen is doubly awkward for them. On the one hand, Trump is antagonistic towards Iran and they've been saying that it's a bad thing, and to whatever limited degree Iran is involved in Yemen, that might undermine their messaging. On the other hand, of course, the Democratic leadership is very cozy with Saudi Arabia, and pictures of children being starved by the people they have been so friendly with would not play too well for them either.

Anonymous said...

clearly a more judicious post would show:
how often by comparison Fox, and CNN also covered or failed to cover Yemen.

Anonymous said...

Western media coverage of the war on Yemen and U.S. support for it is very rare to begin with, so it is most unfortunate that some major outlets do such a horrible job when they do choose to cover it. Consider this garbage story from FoxNews:

The Iranian-backed suicide attack targeting a Saudi frigate off the coast of Yemen on Monday may have been meant for an American warship, two defense officials told Fox News.

There is absolutely no evidence to support this assertion about an intention to target U.S. ships, and the “analysis” behind the story depends entirely on the Houthi use of their standard slogan in a video. It is slipshod analysis presented in poor, largely context-free reporting, and it does a huge disservice to the audience by misleading them about a conflict that most Americans know little about. The reaction from experts and journalists was deservedly harsh:

Anonymous said...

American TV news as a whole (CNN, NBC, Fox, etc.) is just crap. It's designed for TV, so it appeals to emotions, fads, and generally the bottom of the barrel in terms of audience. Yeah there's left agenda media majority and then there's Fox as a reaction to the others' bias, but they are all junk by nature of their profit model.

Anonymous said...

Agreed. When fox did it everyone jumped on them (and rightfully so). But today, CNN and MSNBC are so much worse than Fox was before. They're completely insane.

Plus why are the talking heads all wear the same glasses? It's clearly an attempt to look intellectual and it's so embarrassing. But all are guilty of this. Just on cnn and msnbc there seems to be one pair of glasses for the left nuts

Anonymous said...

all the anons adore, suck up Fox, and even Fox denounced yesterday's actions by Trumpster!
Anons: why view anything, read anything...you get the news from.....?or you simply listen to the man in on the golf course

Anonymous said...

Are you going to keep pretending CNN/fox/msnbc is regular news? You don't see anything wrong?

Anonymous said...

"All the world's a stage".

We all play our part. Sometimes the actor mostly as the audience. What is not seen or talked about is deemed not important.

The "NEWS" is doing the audience a favor not covering reality that's not entertainment.
Ignored it can be brought out as "Breaking NEWS" at a later date. As long as the facts can be twisted to bring about an emotional response. I truly despise emotional NEWS.
Unless it is unscripted real time.
Otherwise it just plays to feelings. I don't need NEWS stinking feelings. Mine are quite enough.

We will never be without our "Daily Reality Entertainment" (NEWS).
Cue music... Pink Floyd, The Wall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJHvmOy8W5w&list=PLJNbijG2M7OxQbdJNbASE5BYg5S6P-6wd&index=8

B.Poster said...

The Yemen war appears to essentially be a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. We appear to support Saudi Arabia. As far as I am concerned, you support a side in a war and you are now in that war. According to the Constitution as I understand it Congress is supposed to declare war.

This has all been done without any real debate as to whether or not we need to be in war in Yemen on behalf of Saudi Arabia. Essentially Congress never declared war thus making any participation on our part of any level no matter how large or small unconstitutional.

Regardless of the validity of the of the Stormy Daniels story no matter how it works itself out no American is going to die now will this saga, in and of itself, affect the pay or lack thereof of any American.

In contrast, our involvement in the war in Yemen has real risk of blowback. Americans could actually be killed as the result of this and, as is often the case with blowback, these American casualties may not be limited to any Americans directly involved. This could result in Americans on the US mainland being killed.

Clearly the war in Yemen is more important than is Stormy Daniels. As to why the Stormy Daniels saga takes precedent, I think there are four basic reasons. 1.)It fits an anti-Trump narrative that the media is keen on pushing. The Yemen war does not. 2.)Many Americans are unserious and like to bide their time pursuing trivial and unimportant matters such as this. 3.)More Americans are simply way to busy trying to feed their families, keep a roof over their heads, and pay bills and are unable to pay attention to the news period and do not know enough about Yemen to even insist that they be kept apprised of the developments there either by their government or the news media. 4.)The issues surrounding Yemen are likely very complex. The Stormy Daniels drama really isn't that complex. It's kind of hard to put complex issues into simple talking points for a typical news segment. As such, the media goes for the stories that fit their narratives and that can be put together with the least amount of effort.

Many thanks to the editor for doing his best to keep us apprised of the situation in Yemen!! This is one that can have profound impact on us.

Anonymous said...

Picking on a single site indicates an antipathy. Rather GO HERE for print (not tv) news there is daily, on Yemen. In sum: straw horse and no real issue to be taken seriously in this posted article but rather a political position at play

B.Poster said...

Anon (last one),

We always have to specify WHICH anonymous as there are so many here!! Thank you for these links.

Clearly real people are losing their lives and their economic lively hoods as a direct result of the Yemen war. To the extent that America is involved in the support of one side or the other (t appears the Saudi side), this could result in actual blowback against Americans that has the real possibility of directly resulting in the deaths of real Americans and, if oil supplies or commerce are disrupted because of this as is a real possibility, the economic lively hoods of Americans could be adversely affected as a direct result of this and our involvement has been brought about without any public discourse on this so Americans can actually make a decision on is this something we need to be involved in. I think these are factual statements that are not disputable.

In contrast, the Stormy Daniels story will not directly affect the economic lively hoods of anyone nor will anyone die as a direct result of it. I think this is beyond dispute. IF the Stormy Daniels drama can result in the impeachment of Trump somehow, then then the effects might be indirect as it might result in the loss of the regulatory reforms, the tax cuts, and the insistence on more equitable trade practices that have been instrumental to economic growth. This could adversely affect someone but this is another topic entirely.

As the editor has often pointed out, his problem is not with what the news media covers but what they choose to ignore. Given the importance of the Yemeni war, to have ignored it entirely is doing a disservice to the American people. To point this out, hardly seems to be taking a "political position" but is instead highlighting the failure the media in general.

I point out why I think certain media outlets ignore the Yemeni war. Actually, in and of itself, points 2 and 4 might be sufficient to explain why it is often ignored. In this case, there is no bias per say. It is simply unserious people wish to be entertained and what better way to do so than to feed them trivial matters. Also, issues like the Yemeni war are likely very difficult and perhaps even dangerous to cover. When ratings can be achieved by non important issues like the Stormy Daniels saga, there's little incentive to do the hard stuff.

Anonymous said...

Just want to note that the call from one anon for regulations for those who would call themselves news broadcasters: it is Trump and the GOP that always want to dump as many regulations as possible. They are not about to satisfy a request for more and better regulations.
the war in Yemen has been going on for some 3 years...major events there are covered in some places. Stormy by contrast is at the heart of the current investigations about the president, and that, like it or not, is more immediate, closer to home, even more important domestically