{"id":353102,"date":"2018-03-20T22:05:01","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T21:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/in-run-up-to-vote-to-end-yemen-war-msnbc-remains-totally-silent\/"},"modified":"2018-03-20T22:05:01","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T21:05:01","slug":"in-run-up-to-vote-to-end-yemen-war-msnbc-remains-totally-silent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/in-run-up-to-vote-to-end-yemen-war-msnbc-remains-totally-silent\/","title":{"rendered":"In Run-Up to Vote to End Yemen War, MSNBC Remains Totally Silent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What use is having a \u201cliberal\u201d cable network if it remains silent on the major issues facing the left?<\/p>\n<p>As FAIR noted in January (<b>FAIR.org<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/home\/msnbc-yemen-russia-coverage-2017\/\">1\/8\/17<\/a>), <b>MSNBC<\/b>\u2019s coverage of the US-assisted bombing and siege of Yemen is virtually nonexistent. In the year 2017, <b>MSNBC<\/b> ran only one segment that focused on the US\u2019s role in Yemen; zero in the second half of the year. In 2018 so far, <b>MSNBC<\/b> hasn\u2019t run <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/search\/yemen?f[0]=bundle%3Atheplatform_video\">a single segment on Yemen<\/a>, much less the US\u2019s role in in it.<\/p>\n<p>The US-supported, Saudi-led bombing campaign has caused <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/worldviews\/wp\/2017\/12\/21\/one-million-people-have-caught-cholera-in-yemen-you-should-be-outraged\/\">upward of 1 million cholera cases<\/a> and killed over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/world\/articles\/2017-01-16\/top-un-official-10-000-civilians-killed-in-yemen-conflict\">10,000 civilians<\/a> (a figure that is over a year old, with the current toll <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alaraby.co.uk\/english\/comment\/2017\/12\/29\/its-time-to-get-real-about-yemens-death-toll\">likely much higher<\/a>). The only segment this year that even mentioned Yemen, according to a search of <strong>MSNBC <\/strong>transcripts in the Nexis news database, was a Chris Hayes interview (<strong>All In<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/transcripts\/all-in\/2018-03-02\">3\/2\/18<\/a>) with Ryan Grim of <strong>The Intercept<\/strong>, in which Grim described the impact of Jared Kushner&#8217;s secret dealings with Qatar:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The Yemen crisis and the humanitarian disaster going on there is tied into this, because it&#8217;s kind of the way the politics play out there. Saudi cares more about the Yemen war and the UAE cares more about Qatar, and so there&#8217;s sort of a quid pro quo going there, like Saudi will help UAE going after Qatar, the UAE helps Saudi go after Yemen. So facilitating this entire thing has helped, you know, explode a cholera epidemic and mass starvation in Yemen while we&#8217;re at it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Viewers who rely on <strong>MSNBC<\/strong> for their news were likely at a loss to say what Grim was talking about.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8916637\" style=\"max-width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-8916637\" src=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Lee-Sanders.png\" alt=\"Senators Mike Lee and Bernie Sanders (image: C-SPAN)\" width=\"350\" height=\"197\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Senators Mike Lee and Bernie Sanders introducing a Yemen war powers resolution (image: <strong>C-SPAN<\/strong>)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the run-up to a vote this week on a bill co-sponsored by senators Bernie Sanders, Mike Lee and Chris Murphy to withdraw US support for the Saudi air campaign\u2014a move that, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/blog\/brookings-now\/2016\/04\/22\/watch-sen-chris-murphy-on-revisiting-u-s-saudi-relationship\/\">at least one insider<\/a>, would end the war itself\u2014the US\u2019s major \u201cliberal\u201d cable network has continued its radio silence. <b>MSNBC<\/b> continued to ignore the story this week as activists and a broad coalition of anti-war groups tried to put pressure on the Senate to finally end the US-sustained siege of Yemen.<\/p>\n<p><b>MSNBC<\/b>\u2019s three major stars\u2014Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O\u2019Donnell\u2014haven\u2019t used their sizable social media followings to highlight the issue either. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?f=tweets&amp;vertical=default&amp;q=from%3Achrislhayes%20yemen&amp;src=typd\">None<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?f=tweets&amp;q=from%3ALawrence%20yemen&amp;src=typd\">of the<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?f=tweets&amp;q=from%3Amaddow%20yemen&amp;src=typd\">well-paid<\/a> pundits has tweeted about the topic of Yemen in 2018. While Hayes has handwrung about the topic on <b>Twitter<\/b> in the past, he hasn\u2019t covered it on his show since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=owg5DpeSXQg\">summer 2016<\/a>. O\u2019Donnell has tweeted about Yemen once in 20,000 tweets since joining the social media platform in June 2010; Maddow has mentioned it in four out of 7,000 tweets, two of those mentions in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Even as frequent <b>MSNBC<\/b> guests Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, as well as celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon, lobby directly for the bill, <b>MSNBC<\/b> has not dedicated a single segment to the war, or to the recent high-profile efforts to end it.<\/p>\n<p><b>MSNBC<\/b> ceding anti-war sentiment is notable in its own right, and as part of a broader trend of liberal institutions abandoning anti-war voices in favor of short-term liberal jingoism (<b>FAIR.org<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/home\/stoking-russia-panic-for-partisan-gain-will-have-a-long-term-price-for-peace\/\">8\/24\/16<\/a>). Despite <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/search\/yemen?f[0]=bundle%3Atheplatform_video\">not having a single segment<\/a> on Yemen thus far in 2018, <b>MSNBC<\/b> did manage <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/search\/stormy%20daniels\">143 segments on Stormy Daniels<\/a>, the woman President Trump paid off and harassed to hide an affair. A story to be sure, but perhaps not one worth 143 more reports than thousands being bombed with the help of US weapons sales and military support.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s extra disconcerting that <b>MSNBC<\/b> is being outflanked from the left by <b>Breitbart<\/b>, which has covered efforts to end the war a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tag\/yemen\/\">dozen or so times<\/a>\u2014likely for cynical, nativist reasons. But anti-war sentiment is going to be led by someone, and one imagines that those concerned with building progressive anti-war coalitions would prefer it be led by a liberal network rather than a fascist one.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"et_bloom_bottom_trigger\"><\/span><script async src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nThis piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from <a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/home\/in-run-up-to-vote-to-end-yemen-war-msnbc-remains-totally-silent\/\">FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What use is having a \u201cliberal\u201d cable network if it remains silent on the major issues facing the left? As FAIR noted in January (FAIR.org, 1\/8\/17), MSNBC\u2019s coverage of the US-assisted bombing and siege of Yemen is virtually nonexistent. In the year 2017, MSNBC ran only one segment that focused on the US\u2019s role in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-353102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}