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Comment by kurttheviking | Hacker News Reader

> i'm disappointed that i haven't seen a single member of the media or Democratic party establishments talk about Obama's expansion of the drone program.

I have been hearing and reading about the expansion of Obama's drone program for years in "the media". Some quick Googling shows several examples.

- http://www.npr.org/2013/04/28/179597464/leading-senate-democ...

- http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155389081/are-drones-obamas-le...

- http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/23/politics/obama-drone-warren-we...

- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-drone-war-is-...

- http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/01/12/reflecting-o...

One can argue that consumers of media have chosen to ignore or accept these stories, but I think it's a little disingenuous to suggest the issues aren't being raised at all.

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Sure, they throw the issue a bone every once in a while, but was it even within an order of magnitude as the amount of airtime given when Bush was doing the bombing? (you can even look at the amount of stories coming out now, in the two weeks that Trump has been doing what Obama did non-stop for nearly a decade.)

It's a little disingenuous to link to five stories from five different sources over a five year period and claim that the magnitude of the ongoing stories has been fairly captured over the last eight years.

> It's a little disingenuous to link to five stories from five different sources over a five year period and claim that the magnitude of the ongoing stories has been fairly captured over the last eight years.

I tried to explain that was a quick Google of resources that most people consider to be "the media". The OP had suggested not "a single member" to which the counter point is, fairly I believe, minimal evidence to the contrary.

To make a claim about relative magnitude would require us to establish "how much is enough" and I do not believe that was the point in question -- as I am unsure how we could ever make such a determination.

> To make a claim about relative magnitude would require us to establish "how much is enough" and I do not believe that was the point in question -- as I am unsure how we could ever make such a determination.

Fair, but when I compare the left echo chamber over the last two weeks when Trump launched attacks in Yemen to the left chamber a couple months ago while Obama was bombing Yemen and US armed groups were fighting each other in Northern Syria, there was a significant perceived difference in the amount of coverage and tone. It's not really quantifiable, as you said, but that doesn't mean it's not true.

That's fair. It's not that it's gone completely unreported--but often the coverage is uncritical.

The NYTimes in particular, which also played a tremendous role in justifying the Iraq War to the public, has been downright jingoistic in its occasional coverage of drones. Look at this ridiculous results page: https://www.google.com/search?q=nytimes+op+ed+drone+program

But you're ultimately right: some outlets did run some critical coverage.

The Democratic party establishment, otoh... crickets. Even now, two weeks into the Trump presidency.

They seem more worried that he's appointing some incompetent rube to run the EPA than the fact that he just inherited their secret kill list.

Just because you posted a few example articles, does not negate the fact that the media fails to provide front-page coverage of such an important issue.

During the end of Preisdent Obama's first term and into the start of the second term there was a series of uproars about illegal drone strikes in Pakistan[1]. This was covered on the front page of the papers I see (WSJ, NYT) and discussed extensively in podcast-land. See also, related discussions from HN [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=drone%20strike&sort=byPopulari...

I dont understand this notion of media responsibility to report on matters of grave importance and substance. As long as media is profit driven (which the vast majority it is) I expect nothing from them other than to please their shareholders. If reporting on drones drove more clicks and generated more page views we'd see media rushing to report on such coverage. The fact that they don't to me says it's a demand problem. People just are not interested in facing up to news that their government is bombing other countries in their name.

Public news organisations, on the other hand, should definitely be held to the expectation of reporting on issues in priority of importance, with not a shred of concern placed on how popular the reporting will become.

This is not surprising at all that npr has been covering this extensively, and also nobody bothered to listen.

> As long as media is profit driven (which the vast majority it is) I expect nothing from them other than to please their shareholders. If reporting on drones drove more clicks and generated more page views we'd see media rushing to report on such coverage.

You're oversimplifying this issue greatly. The media can (and do) manipulate the public, their opinions and interests. Don't think that just because we're the "good" guys that propaganda isn't practiced in the US. "Trust Me: I'm Lying" is a good book about this subject.

Your personal ignorance to stories presented by the media doesn't prove that they are failing to cover important issues.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Drone%20str...

Interesting how that became so popular lately.

There was a relevant recent event for that spike ...

Sure, but as a counter point, simply look at drone strikes overall:

https://www.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Drone%20str...

There's a new documentary coming this year. It was mentioned in one of the lectures on 33C3. What it is about may be a part of it.

https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2016/Fahrplan/events...

It's just that we haven't seen people protesting in the streets for some reason. Hmmm, I wonder why that is. Dropping 100k bombs, killing 2200 people with drones, and toppling several governments sure seems like a bigger deal to me than a 3 month visa ban.

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