In May, as ISIS terrorists captured the Iraqi city of Ramadi and the Syrian city of Palmyra, and with the FBI warning of hundreds of radicalized sympathizers here in the U.S., the ABC, CBS and NBC broadcast evening newscasts devoted a combined 84.5 minutes to ISIS, compared to just under 40 minutes in April.
Yet even though the coverage doubled, evening news viewers last month heard virtually no criticism of President Obama’s handling of ISIS — just 43 seconds in a pair of NBC Nightly News stories, or less than one percent of the coverage.
While some evening news stories second-guessed the U.S. strategy as ineffective, none attached President Obama personally to the failing policies. The only criticism of the President came for his “Baghdad Bob”-esque
claim that the war against ISIS was going well.
Three days later, NBC White House correspondent Chris Jansing told viewers that “even Democrats” disputed Obama’s rosy assertion: “Just last week, the President said ‘I don’t think we’re losing,’ and called Ramadi ‘a tactical setback.’ It’s an assessment, though, even Democrats disputed today.”
Neither ABC nor CBS found time to tell their evening news viewers about Obama’s optimistic claim. And, for the most part, the networks suggested criticism lay with the military itself, not the Commander-in-Chief who established the overall policy.
For example, a May 26 report by CBS News correspondent David Martin explained how the air campaign against ISIS was hurt by not having U.S. forces on the front lines to help with the targeting: “Pentagon officials acknowledge strikes flown with controllers would be more efficient, but they are not willing to put Americans on the frontlines of a battle the Iraqis have to win for themselves.”
Martin’s report skipped over the fact that it was the President who in his September 10 speech insisted that the military advisors he was sending to Iraq “will not have a combat mission. We will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq.”
As the New York Post pointed out in a May 23 editorial, Obama’s policies have failed to blunt ISIS:
The week that was brought fresh evidence that President Obama has no actual strategy to defeat ISIS — just talking points, platitudes and gestures.
ISIS takes Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria — each a city of great strategic, economic and symbolic value. The US response: Send Iraq 1,000 anti-tank missiles, downplay the victories and have the president intone, “I don’t think we’re losing.”
Reality check: In the nine months since Obama announced his anti-ISIS coalition, ISIS territory has grown 20 percent. Most of the coalition’s 50 “members” have done nothing in the fight.
Even US forces have done far less than they might, flying far fewer bombing sorties than they could — and almost never bombing ISIS’s capital or command facilities in Raqqa, Syria.
The broadcast networks certainly aren’t hiding this dire news, but they’re helpfully insulating President Obama from the consequences of his policy choices.
