While your all distracted with a flag.10 Stories the Media Missed While Obsessing Over the Confederate Flag

A common technique the media employs when covering news is the “feeding frenzy.” Thedictionarydefines feeding frenzy as “a period of intense excitement over or interest in a person or thing: the media erupt into a feeding frenzy.” The Bill Clinton sex scandal of the late 90’s is one example. Other classic cases from the 1950’s to the 1990’s are highlighted by the Washington Post—which has not updated the section since the 1990’s. Had they done so, they might have included many recent cases highlighted here and here.

The media is at it again, but this time the subject of the frenzy is the Confederate flag of South Carolina and other Confederate emblems used by Southern states. Not only has the Confederate flag media frenzy diluted the issue of white supremacy and racism surrounding the Charleston shooting, the coverage has also taken over the airwaves and crowded out other stories that are equally deserving of discussion. So below are ten of the top stories that the media has missed during this frenzy:

1. The think tank New America issued a report showing that more Americans died from right wing extremist violence than deadly Jihadist attacks since 9/11. The U.S. media, government, andIslamophobic pundits have exaggerated the threat of Islamic extremism in the U.S. to such an extent that it is accepted as fact without the need of any proof. Not only that, Glenn Greenwald reports that Americans are more likely to be killed by a car, bees/wasps/hornets, lightening, or crushed by their own furniture than be killed by Islamic extremists.

2. The Taliban launched a daring attack on the Afghan parliament in Kabul while it was in session. If the Taliban is making such daring attacks while the U.S. troops are still stationed in the country, what will they do when the American presence is further scaled back? If the capital city is not secure and safe from Taliban attacks, then nowhere else in Afghanistan is safe. This means that as soon as the U.S. pulls its last soldier from the country—which is inevitable—the current Afghan government will likely fall, the Taliban will seize power, and the United States’ fourteen year presence in Afghanistan will have been futile.

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