“The Machine of Perpetual War Acceptance”: Veteran NBC Journalist Resigns in Protest over One-Sided Coverage

By Jonathan Turley
Global Research, January 04, 2019
Jonathan Turley 3 January 2019
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This week I published a column on how the Democratic Party seems to have jettisoned many of its defining values to simply become the anti-Trump party. The best example of that transformation is the automatic opposition to Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria and other countries. At the same time, liberal media outlets like CNN and MSNBC have been airing continual experts denouncing the “hasty” withdrawal.

Now veteran NBC award-winning journalist William Arkin has resigned in protest of what he says is the unrelenting support of the network for endless wars. He notes that the anti-Trump agenda at the network has overwhelmed what used to be critical coverage of “the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton’s hawkishness.” Now the reflective anti-Trump response at the network has overwhelmed all such considerations, according to Arkin. While Arkin calls Trump “an ignorant and incompetent impostor,” he cites the transformation of NBC into an opposition network as the main reason for his departure.

In my recent speech at the Newseum, I raised the same issue over the change in national media coverage. While praising the investigative reporting of various outlets, I objected to the raw advocacy that you now see from hosts in being live and immediate opposition talking points against new developments in the Administration.

Arkin objected to the same pattern at NBC. In his email, Arkin states that he “argued endlessly with MSNBC about all things national security for years” as a military analyst and became “an often lone voice that was anti-nuclear and even anti-military, anti-military for me meaning opinionated but also highly knowledgeable, somewhat akin to a movie critic, loving my subject but also not shy about making judgements regarding the flops and the losers.” He added;

He specifically notes the reflective opposition to Trump as pushing NBC into the role of an advocate for endless war:

I do not know Arkin but his email again raises a rarely acknowledged concern in the mainstream media over the change in the tenor and balance of our coverage. Trump has changed not just the Democratic Party but the media — untethering both from core defining values.

Click here for William M Arkin’s full email.

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Articles by: Jonathan Turley

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