Follow us on social

||||

Out of sight, out of mind: Afghanistan vanishes from US news

New data shows stunning plunge in coverage, just as the humanitarian crisis — much of it caused by Washington sanctions — peaks.

Analysis | Asia-Pacific

Despite unprecedented levels of hunger and starvation for which U.S. sanctions bear important responsibility, Afghanistan has once again virtually disappeared from the most important single source of world news for most Americans.

Since September, which marked the end of U.S. efforts to evacuate its citizens and its foreign and Afghan allies, the evening news programs of the three dominant U.S. television networks — ABC, NBC, and CBS — have collectively devoted a grand total of 21 minutes — spread over ten story segments — to Afghanistan. 

That marks a stunning plunge in evening news attention from a total of 427 minutes devoted to Afghanistan in the two previous months, about 75 percent of which were broadcast in August during the Taliban’s takeover of the country and the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and allied personnel. Just one three-minute segment has aired since December 1.

“For the American networks this year, what was newsworthy was the fall of Kabul and the pullout of U.S. troops, not the fate of the Afghan people in the aftermath,” noted Andrew Tyndall, editor of the authoritative Tyndall Report, which has monitored the three networks’ nightly news broadcasts each weekday since 1988.

Moreover, 15 of those 21 minutes devoted to Afghanistan between October 1 to December 25 had nothing to do with its increasingly desperate humanitarian crisis that threatens nearly 23 million people — or more than half the country’s population — with “extreme levels of hunger,” and as many as one million children with death due to severe acute malnutrition this winter.

Indeed, four of the ten segments were hopeful, “feel-good” stories focused almost entirely on U.S.-based efforts to help former Afghan allies who are adapting to their new lives in the United States or are still trying to flee the country. A fifth story dealt with an initiative to help Afghan girls continue their education in computer coding remotely, and a sixth was a heart-warming segment about U.S. Army medics who served in Afghanistan in 2011.

Only two of the ten news segments addressed the unfolding humanitarian disaster, which was described by the Trump-appointed director of the UN’s World Food Program, former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, as “hell on earth” earlier this month.

While the major cable news networks often receive more media attention, the three network evening news shows collectively remain the single most important source of international news in the United States. 

On weekday evenings, an average of about 20 million U.S. viewers tune in to national news programs on CBS, ABC, or NBC. That’s roughly four times the number of people who rely on the major cable stations — Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN — for their news during prime time. About two million more people watch the network news via the internet, according to Tyndall.

What appears on the national networks often exerts a major influence on the news agenda at other U.S. media organizations. “Because network news shows are the most mainstream of the mainstream media,” Tyndall told Responsible Statecraft, “they can be used as a proxy for the news judgment of mainstream media more generally.” 

As I noted in an article published in August, a major reason why Americans were so shocked by the dramatic collapse of the U.S.-supported regime in Kabul was the fact that the three weekday evening news programs devoted a combined total of only five minutes to coverage of Afghanistan during all of 2020. More recently tabulated statistics compiled by the Tyndall Report show that Afghanistan was entirely absent from the network evening news in January through March of 2021 and claimed a total of only 82 minutes between April and the end of July before hitting 345 minutes in August when the Taliban swept across the country and entered Kabul. In September, by which time the Taliban had taken full control and virtually all Americans had left Afghanistan, the combined network total fell sharply to 82 minutes only to fall even further, to ten minutes in October.

The two three-minute segments that addressed the growing humanitarian and hunger crisis aired on NBC Nightly News and ABC Evening News on November 17 and December 15, respectively. 

To be fair, the CBS news organization as a whole devoted much more attention to the disastrous situation in Afghanistan than indicated by its evening news program. In fact, it alerted its “CBS Mornings” audience to the brewing crisis back on October 20 when it cited UN warnings that “95 percent of people in Afghanistan are going hungry” and featured an on-site account by correspondent Imtiaz Tyab. 

But the morning network news shows generally attract only about a third of the audiences of their evening counterparts.

Much more commendable was CBS’s coverage of the humanitarian crisis in a nearly 15-minute segment featured on the December 12 edition of “60 Minutes,” the nation’s most widely watched prime-time public affairs program whose audience normally numbers about nine million. “Negotiating with the Taliban” featured interviews not only with representatives of international humanitarian groups, but also with the Taliban’s health minister.

What was missing in the “60 Minutes” segment, as with the two evening news segments about the crisis on the ABC and NBC, however, was any focus on the U.S. role in restricting or blocking funding that could help alleviate its catastrophic impact. As noted by Julie Hollar of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the ABC reporter referred only to a “mix of sanctions and drought” as the crisis’s main causes, while NBC’s segment concluded its report by simply noting the Taliban’s appeal to “the United States and other governments to unblock funds frozen since the takeover.” Even the “60 Minutes” story failed to note Washington’s contribution to the crisis, insisting instead that it was the much vaguer “international community” that was responsible for “freezing Afghan assets, shutting down foreign aid, and extending sanctions.”

While that characterization is technically true, the main driver of these actions since August has been the United States, which froze $9.5 billion of (Afghanistan’s own) foreign reserves, pressured the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to delay emergency support, and effectively denied Afghanistan’s banks access to the international financial system. 

While the Biden administration in recent days has eased some restrictions on aid to non-governmental and international organizations in response to increasing international and Congressional pressure, as well as an appeal by former senior U.S. military officers and diplomats who served in Afghanistan, one would think that Washington’s responsibility for the Afghan people’s current plight would be highly relevant to U.S. news organizations purportedly dedicated to informing American citizens about what their government is doing.

After all, taxpayers have spent an estimated $2.3 trillion and lost more than 2,400 service members during Washington’s 20-year war in Afghanistan. And the three networks’ weekday evening news broadcasts themselves devoted a total of 5,590 minutes to covering that war over that same period.

But more than 90 percent of those 93-plus hours, Tyndall told Responsible Statecraft in August, was devoted to the U.S. role in the actual fighting. 

No more U.S. soldiers and marines on the ground, no more coverage on the evening news, and Afghanistan, despite Washington’s enormous impact on the country, both through its military intervention and now through its sanctions, fades quickly into distant memory. Left behind: 23 million Afghans at risk of starvation to add to the roughly 176,000 Afghans killed during America’s longest war.


An Afghan woman holds her child as she and others wait to receive package being distributed by a Turkish humanitarian aid group at a distribution centre in Kabul, Afghanistan, December 15, 2021. REUTERS/Ali Khara|Courtesy of Tyndall Report|||Courtesy of the Tyndall Report
Analysis | Asia-Pacific
 Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Sudan
Top image credit: Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan gestures to soldiers inside the presidential palace after the Sudanese army said it had taken control of the building, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan March 26, 2025. Sudan Transitional Sovereignty Council/Handout via REUTERS

Saudi Arabia chooses sides in Sudan's civil war

Africa

In the final days of Ramadan, before Mecca's Grand Mosque, Sudan's de facto president and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan knelt in prayer beside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Al-Burhan had arrived in the kingdom just two days after his troops dealt a significant blow to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), recapturing the capital Khartoum after two years of civil war. Missing from the frame was the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Gulf power that has backed al-Burhan’s rivals in Sudan’s civil war with arms, mercenaries, and political cover.

The scene captured the essence of a deepening rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE — once allies in reshaping the Arab world, now architects of competing visions for Sudan and the region.

For two years, Sudan has been enveloped in chaos. The conflict that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed forces (SAF) and the RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo "Hemedti," has inflicted immense suffering: an estimated 150,000 killed, allegations of mass atrocities staining both sides but particularly the RSF in Darfur, 12 million displaced, and over half the population facing acute food insecurity.

keep readingShow less
Donald Trump Massad Boulos
Top image credit: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump is joined by Massad Boulos, who was recently named as a 'senior advisor to the President on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs,' during a campaign stop at the Great Commoner restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S., on November 1, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

Trump tasks first time envoy with the most complex Africa conflict

Africa

As the war between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and allied militias against the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group continues, the Trump administration is reportedly tapping Massad Boulos as the State Department’s special envoy to the African Great Lakes region.

In this capacity, Boulos will be responsible for leading the American diplomatic effort to bring long-desired stability to the region and to end a conflict that has been raging in the eastern DRC for decades.

keep readingShow less
Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?
Top photo credit: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) (Gage Skidmore /Creative Commons) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) )( USDA photo by Preston Keres)

Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?

QiOSK

Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have co-written a letter to the White House, demanding to know the administration’s strategy behind the now-18 days of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

The letter calls into question the supposed intent of these strikes “to establish deterrence,” acknowledging that neither the Biden administration’s strikes in October 2023, nor the years-long bombing campaign by Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2020, were successful in debilitating the military organization's military capabilities.

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.