By Patricia Lee Sharpe
I was watching the PBS Newhour tonight. It was followed, as usual, by a half hour segment of the BBC news. During the latter, I learned that the important debate we thought we were having about possible troop enhancements in Afghanistan is probably over.Britain’s PM Gordon Brown is sending an extra 500 fighters to Afghanistan, evidently, but only because he can count on an American surge: President Obama will likely be complying with General McCrystal’s request to beef up the American contingent. And there’s more. The numbers may exceed the 40,000 we ordinary American citizens were given to believe was the target number of the General's request.
Why am learning this from a foreign news medium? Do the American news media not know? Have they decided—or been persuaded—that the U.S. public does not need to be informed of what our government is planning to do?
Either possibility is unnerving.
I saw the BBC videocast at 6:30 pm mountain time. It is now 10:30 pm mountain time. A quick look at Google news shows CNN reporting only the proposed British buildup, while the NYT is opting for process, not substance, a truly unhelpful trend in news reporting. The Washington Post does mention the British assertions, but the story rests on the well-worn official statement that the President hasn’t made up his mind and won’t for a number of weeks yet. Of the major US media, only the LA Times seems to be truly interested in the BBC report. It reproduces a transcript of a press conference with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who ridicules the notion of getting Obama news from the BBC, not him. So—do we believe the President’s man or the BBC?Yes. Who are we to believe? Once it was easy. I trusted the American press to dig and pry and muckrake. However, considering the derelictions of main stream media in recent years, especially the tendency to feed us unquestioned official versions of anything delicate, I’m inclined to go with the BBC version. They’re not likely to go out on a limb without good reason.
All of which makes me sad and angry. There are many among us who assert that we can no longer count on the U.S. press to keep us fearlessly well informed about our government and those we have chosen to lead us. I've been slow to resign myself to this possibility, and maybe my doubts will turn out to be ill founded. But the mere fact that I am doubting is the crux of the matter.