Megan Stack on the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the perilous situation for journalists on the ground

Reliable Sources

CNN

News

3.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Megan Stack, a contributor to The New Yorker, discusses her recent article about the Pentagon's "de-facto press blackout" in Afghanistan, plus the threats to members of the media in the country. She describes the U.S. military's concerns about how coverage of the troop withdrawal could hurt America's image, saying "they know that any photograph that looks sort of unvictorious, that looks that looks like giving up and kind of quitting" might be useful "to foreign adversaries." Stack analyzes the Taliban's advances and says the image feared by U.S. officials -- a helicopter evacuation reminiscent of the Fall of Saigon -- could wind up being seen. Stack also reflects on two decades of Afghan war coverage and says "I found it very difficult to reconcile how little the U.S. public does seem to understand or engage with the extent of what's happened and what our government has done. I find that very jarring, especially because I gave so many years of my life and I have friends who died covering those stories, and it's sort of frustrating... I feel like people have done great coverage over the years and it just hasn't quite penetrated." To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The U.S. led war in Afghanistan has been wound down in secrecy.
0:08.5	And now new battles are raging as the Taliban claims big parts of the country.
0:14.3	It is a dangerous story to cover, a chaotic story to cover and limits on the press don't
0:21.0	be getting any easier.
0:23.3	So what should everyone know about covering Afghanistan at this pivot point in history
0:29.8	that's one of the questions for this week's Reliable Sources podcast.
0:33.7	So let's cue the music.
0:35.9	I'm Brian Stelter and this weekly podcast is our chance to go in depth with media leaders
0:41.0	and newsmakers exploring how the news gets made.
0:47.3	Foreign correspondent Megan Stack, a contributor to the New Yorker, recently wrote about the
0:52.9	perilous situation in Afghanistan with a focus on news coverage.
0:58.1	For article for the New Yorker was titled a near press blackout in Afghanistan, quoting
1:03.9	from Stack's article, the military ignored requests for embeds, denied pleas for even
1:09.7	perfunctory interviews with troops and generally worked to obstruct the public's view of
1:15.3	the United States pulling up stakes.
1:19.2	Megan is with me now for a conversation all about this.
1:21.8	Megan, thanks for coming on the podcast.
1:23.8	Thanks so much for having me.
1:25.8	I wasn't aware of the limits on press access to this extent until I read your recent article
1:32.6	about it.
1:33.6	But before we get into the details, let's just evaluate where things stand vis-à-vis the
1:39.0	US and Afghanistan.
	...

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