A petition has been started that advocates for the mainstream media to stop glorifying war.
War is not entertainment
That is the Leonard Cohen quote that MSNBC’s Brian Williams used last week to wax poetic about Donald Trump’s decision to illegally drop dozens of Tomahawk missiles on Syria. 1 He described the “beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments” that were emerging of the strike with reverence and awe, demonstrating the horrifying and dangerous attitude that traditional corporate media outlets too-often take when reporting on war.
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“I am guided by the beauty of our weapons.”
That is the Leonard Cohen quote that MSNBC’s Brian Williams used last week to wax poetic about Donald Trump’s decision to illegally drop dozens of Tomahawk missiles on Syria.1 He described the “beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments” that were emerging of the strike with reverence and awe, demonstrating the horrifying and dangerous attitude that traditional corporate media outlets too-often take when reporting on war.2
War is not beautiful. Military action should be taken as a last resort and recognized for the sacrifice and loss that comes with it. It is a problem when the people and institutions tasked with keeping the general public informed of our actions in the world hide behind flowery language and lies to keep from having to report on the reality of war.
Media outlets have a huge amount of power and dictate the information, ideas and perspectives that the majority of Americans have access to. When they sensationalize and praise military actions taken by a man with no strategy and no foreign policy experience, they are normalizing whim-based bomb dropping. With the power to reach and inform millions of Americans every day we have to hold the media accountable for providing balanced, accurate information on the consequences of Trump’s warmongering.
Williams was not the only news anchor and reporter to shower praise on Donald Trump for dropping Tomahawk missiles and the “mother-of-all-bombs” on Syria and Afghanistan, respectively.MSNBC’s Kristen Welker said the strike was an example of Trump “turning the page” on the “rocky” beginning of his presidency.3 CNN’s Fareed Zakaria said “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night [by ordering the Syrian missile strikes].”4 Mark Landler from The New York Times published an article after the Syria strike that painted a picture of an emotionally raw Trump deciding to launch missiles out of concern for the Syrian people after seeing images of Assad’s brutal chemical attack. “It was an emotional act by a man suddenly aware that the world’s problems were now his,” he wrote.5
Dropping bombs and ordering missile strikes does not make one presidential. As iconic news anchor Dan Rather said:
“It’s easy to drop bombs and easy to put missiles off. What comes after that, dealing with what comes in the wake of that, is much more difficult.”6