Eric Boehlert: New York Times, CNN and failed Afghanistan coverage

[babylonsister]

New York Times, CNN and failed Afghanistan coverage
But Her Emails, part II
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago


One day after the New York Times in a page-one piece inferred that President Joe Biden is an incompetent who lacks empathy, the State Department announced the U.S. had successfully evacuated 30,000 people from Afghanistan since the end of July, and that 8,000 people departed on Saturday alone, as they filled 60 departing flights from Kabul airport. So much for incompetence.

A thinly veiled opinion column that ran under the banner of “news analysis,” the Times piece was written by White House correspondent Peter Baker. Pounding the daily’s preferred downer troop withdrawal narrative, Baker went out of his way to suggest Biden, whose administration is overseeing a massive Afghanistan airlift and troop withdrawal, is similarly incompetent to Trump, who oversaw the death of 600,000 Americans to Covid-19 last year. It was a stunning bout of failed, Both Sides journalism by Baker.

Led by the New York Times’ and CNN’s frenzied reporting and analysis, the media have gone all in with the narrative that Biden’s presidency sits on the precipice of ruin in the wake of U.S.’s long-expected troop departure from Afghanistan. (Spoiler: It does not.)

Deliberately falling down a deep well of optics reporting (Biden is “defiant and defensive”) and launching sweeping, and often hysterical, conclusions that are not based in fact, the press gathered up its forces days ago and set off on a one-sided feeding frenzy excursion, where week-old “chaotic images” are still treated as breaking news by CNN. Let’s be honest, if the State Departement announced it had evacuated 100,000 people from Kabul, it wouldn’t change the media’s predetermined coverage.

Eager to injure Biden, Beltway scribes gleefully engage in groupthink, echo GOP talking points without pause, and set their sights on the leader of the Democratic Party.

Sound familiar? Does this conjure up disturbing images of the 2016 campaign, when the same invested journalists unleashed a feeding frenzy on the country’s top Democrat, feasted on “optics” analysis, badly overplayed the facts of the story, excitedly amplified Republican lawmakers, obsessed over process, and repeatedly demanded apologies from Hillary Clinton for how she handled her private email correspondence?

It’s not possible to watch much of the misguided Afghanistan coverage and not see the clear similarities between that and the media’s woeful But Her Emails brand of coverage that helped elect Trump.

more...

https://pressrun.media/p/new-york-times-cnn-lead-failed-afghanistan

[spanone]

1. Thank you Eric. K&R

[niyad]

2. Excellent piece. But it is "implied", not "inferred" , in the first line.

[babylonsister]

5. ...

Nothing wrong with inferred imo...

inferred

deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.
"from these facts we can infer that crime has been increasing"

[niyad]

6. I imply, you infer.

[thesquanderer]

17. Either of us can imply or infer.

Imply = give an impression, without specifically saying or demontrating something.
Infer = draw a conclusion or make a determination based on something that was implied.

"One day after the New York Times in a page-one piece inferred that President Joe Biden is an incompetent who lacks empathy..."

If the author of the piece had decided that Biden was incompetent (and communicated such in his piece), then he could have inferred such from Biden's words and actions. If, OTOH, the author communicated his opinion that Biden was imcompetent without coming out and saying it, then he implied it. I agree, the latter is more likely, but the former is not grammatically incorrect, it just has a different meaning.

If someone tells me that Biden is incompetent, as the listener, I can both imply and infer. I can frown at him, implying to him that I thought his statement was nonsense. Or I could infer that the guy I'm talking to probably watches fox.

[babylonsister]

19. Thanks. nt

[TimeToGo]

7. Speaker implies, listener infers

[jaxexpat]

12. When the listener speaks of the speaker's message where does the rule follow?

It's a matter of "when", right. The speaker is presumed to have spoken prior to the listener's hearing. Thus the objective implication occurs prior to the subjective inference? We must deduce, within reason, otherwise prioritization is nonsense. Deductive reasoning isn't inferential but it is infernally presumptuous, a venous verbal ferality.. (Requires two periods. One to stop the speaker and the second to stop the hearers misinterpretation.)

[thesquanderer]

15. A speaker can be said to have implied OR inferred. Different meanings, but both are possible.

And a listener can also imply something, through nonverbal communication.

[TimeToGo]

20. Sure

But in the act of communication the speaker is implying not inferring. Or another way of saying it -- the text implies the reader infers.

All that said, it probably isn't super important as the world turns, but it is the language that we have.

[elleng]

22. Thanks, was just going to point that out!!!

READERS infer, WRITERS imply.

[sboatcar]

3. All this media thrives on controversy

By making everything seem chaotic and blowing up the emotions and all of that, they get more viewers, more page views, etc etc.

[NCDem47]

4. It's nearly become parody.

Onscreen TV news graphics scream "BREAKING NEWS" all the damn time. 1. To draw viewers in who are channel surfing and; 2. To make it look like THEY are in the know and covering something a comeptitor isn't.

[Raster]

14. "if it bleeds, it leads"

Sad, but true. Controversy sells.

[Escurumbele]

8. I hate to say this, but when you do a little analysis on the media the chant of "the media is the

enemy of the people" doesn't sound too far fetched, does it?

It is all about the money, most of the media have become cowards and tabloids reporting...what a shame.

[mvd]

9. K&R

I have hardly heard anything about the successful evacuation. The MSM has officially been exposed as the corporate pro-war toadies that they are. I also think the proposed tax increases in the reconciliation bill are making the media owners nervous, with the result being the rhetoric is even worse.

[justie18]

11. Plus

CNN keeps showing footage from a week ago, of people clinging to plane as if that chaos is still in effect today. Biden is a hero for not bending to the hysteria of the vast majority of cable news the past week.

[IronLionZion]

10. 0 Americans dead is almost as bad as 600,000

if you add a 6 and four zeroes. Both sides. Same diff.

Trump was bloviating at his rally in Alabama how Biden is spreading COVID around by letting foreigners in, but mostly in Southern red states.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. I think likening the future of Afghanistan to the handling of emails is pretty callous

and insulting to the people of Afghanistan. There are actually lives involved this time. This is important news.

[Jon King]

16. Wow, you really missed the point.

He was saying the same type of inflating stories for ratings is what got Trump elected. 'But her emails' is a generic term for this, it is not equating the emails to the lives of Afghans.

In the 10 days the media was breathless about how bad Biden was in Afghanistan....10000 Americans died of Covid, our infrastructure continued to crumble while the media weakened Biden.

This media inflating a story for ratings is how Trump got elected.....her emails was made more important than all the horrors Trump had committed in his life and what he might do to the country.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. No, he's not using it as a generic term - he's specifically saying the 2 episodes are similar

I don't think you should say the media is "inflating a story for ratings"; I think most Americans should be honest and say they don't care about the future of Afghanistan, whether they're Democrats or Republicans. But CNN has always had international coverage, not just internal to the United States, and the New York Times tends that way too. The media outside the USA is also reporting heavily on Afghanistan, while "her emails" largely got a "WTF are they obsessing about?" reaction.

[bagimin]

21. k& highly recommended