Major media outlets provide 0 seconds of Afghanistan coverage since Tuesday
The Federalist columnist and author of ‘Privileged Victims’ Eddie Scary says that the media will ‘wound’ President Biden but will not ‘kill him’ with critical coverage
The liberal media seems to be moving on from President Biden's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, skipping key details and largely ignoring a bombshell report of a leaked July phone call between President Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
"It underscores in broad daylight what sober and objective viewers already know: These ‘news organizations’ engage in activism through the bias of omission in serving at the pleasure of the White House communications team," Fox News contributor Joe Concha said.
The mainstream media seem to be moving on from President Biden's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Photos by Mark Makela/Getty Images | SHAKIB RAHMANI/AFP via Getty Images)
"Any unhinged outrage we witnessed over the Trump-Ukraine call was not based in principal, but cheesy performance art," he said.
Hurricane Ida, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the Texas abortion law have seemingly pushed Afghanistan aside, only one week after 13 U.S. service members and more than 170 Afghan civilians were killed in a tragic suicide bombing in Kabul.
ABC News and CBS News quickly moved on from covering the potentially hundreds of Americans left behind in Afghanistan just one day following the withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel from the now Taliban-controlled country.
According to Grabien transcripts, and first reported by NewsBusters, during their respective Wednesday nightly news reports CBS failed to mention Afghanistan once, while ABC discussed the withdrawal's effects on soldiers who served there, but made no mention of the left-behind Americans.
On Thursday, others joined the mix when ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, MSNBC and CNN all failed to cover a shocking report of a leaked call between Biden and Ghani.
Reuters shared transcript excerpts on Tuesday of a July 23 exchange where Biden appeared to urge Ghani to push the "perception" of stability in Afghanistan amid the U.S. military withdrawal regardless of the reality on the ground. But ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, MSNBC and CNN didn’t seem to care.
"The press is doing what it always does with bad news for the left — it’s burying it," Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor told Fox News.
"Journalists did a credible job covering the disastrous Afghanistan pullout. Now they themselves are pulling out of the story because if they keep reporting on the Americans Biden left behind, they will further harm his presidency," Gainor added, noting that former President Trump would have been forever vilified by the media if he led a disorganized evacuation that cost 13 American lives and abandoned men, women and children.
"Their bias is disgusting," he said.
The phone call also featured Ghani warning Biden, "Mr. President, we are facing a full-scale invasion, composed of Taliban, full Pakistani planning and logistical support, and at least 10-15,000 international terrorists, predominantly Pakistanis thrown into this, so that dimension needs to be taken account of."
Following the release of the phone call transcript excerpts, critics have accused Biden of knowingly misleading the nation while promising a "safe and orderly" exit out of Afghanistan.
Mediaite columnist Jackson Richman noticed that The New York Times appears to have skipped covering the call with Ghani, too.
"The Biden-friendly mainstream media has done a great job overall covering the Afghanistan withdrawal and disastrous and immoral aftermath… the omission by most of the mainstream media, including all the major networks, of this report is inexcusable and puts a dent in that great job," Richman wrote.
The Federalist columnist Eddie Scarry agreed that diluted coverage of the ongoing Afghanistan debacle is calculated.
"The media will wound him but they will not kill him," Scarry said Friday on "Fox & Friends First."
"I think the shift is because the White House let them know, ‘Hey look guys, this isn’t going so well for us,’" Scarry said, noting that the media has also slowed down when it comes to counting COVID-19 deaths in the United States.
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"200,000 people have died since Inauguration Day, all of those happened under Joe Biden’s watch. We don’t count those anymore," Scawrry continued. "A million new migrants who have crushed the border and now we have 13 dead Americans plus the 200ish that are stranded in Afghanistan. All of this happening under Joe Biden’s watch… things aren’t looking good and he probably said, ‘Look can we let up on this for at least a little bit.’"
White House press secretary-turned Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany blasted the liberal media for largely ignoring the call.
"You can guarantee at Fox News we’ll cover when an American president tells a foreign leader to change the perception, whether it is true or not, while leveraging military aide. It is a story of epic proportions," McEnany said Friday on "Outnumbered" when addressing the media blackout.
Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.