The fact is that there is almost no more important job for the news media than to demand answers to these sorts of questions before a president takes the country to war.
There is also some context specific to Trump: He’s erratic, deranged, and impulsive. There can be no assumption that this is a reasoned decision. Journalists should make that clear as well.
And did no one learn the lessons from the cowardly, cheerleading mainstream-media coverage of the run-up to the Iraq War? I’m really agog at how understated the coverage is.
As I wrote last June, I believe journalists have a particular obligation to inform the public about the dangers and horrors of war. They are a repository of certain truths about war: That it is horrible; that it is easier to get into a war than get out of it; that war is often entered into under false pretenses; that when it comes to war, governments lie.
This time though our intentions are pure and war is going to work!
I see articles about Iran on the the front pages of NYTimes, CNN, and even CBS News. Some have multiple articles and have Iran in their ticker.
This presswatchers.org site has one article about Iran on their front page. The article linked doesn’t do any actual journalism, and summarzes the work actual journalists have done.
Trump has been asked questions on Iran, but not by anyone at “presswatchers.org” which appears to be the personal blog of some guy called Dan Froomkin who doesn’t appear to be doing any actual journalism. He just sits around complaining about the news being too fact based and not having enough opinion in it.
What in the critical thinking is going on here?
If you’ve been indoctrinated by fascist American culture you probably think it’s completely normal to constantly attack the free press at every opportunity.
Eh… I’ve definitely been indoctrinated by American culture, and I don’t think that at all. Free press is essential to free people.
Instead of talking about the horrible things the fascists in power are doing, Americans across the board sit around complaining about the media and the Democrats. It’s not just that there’s fascists in power, USA has become a fascist society. There are the fascists that directly support Trump and a whole bunch of useful idiots that spend all day attacking any opposition to Trump while pretending to be against him.
You aren’t going to stop fascism by spending all of your time complaining about the media and complaining about the already decimated political opposition to Trump. That’s exactly what the fascists want you to be doing. It’s getting more and more difficult to tell the difference between MAGAs and Americans that are supposedly against Trump because y’all are complaining about the exact same things.