Are we talking about the same press that cheer-led us into the Iraq war? And on a macro scale--the same press that has basically deified Ronald Reagan?
The American press has never been opposed to blowing up foreigners, because Americans believe it is our god-given right to blow up foreigners. This is true regardless of what party is in power. To the extent that there is opposition, it is rooted solely on the impact of military action on Americans--servicemen killed in action, money spent out of the Treasury, etc. That's why the press finally turned against Bush when Iraq continued to drag on. And that's also why the press doesn't care about drone strikes--the American drone operators aren't getting shot at nor do they cost us a lot of money. That's why they didn't care about cruise missiles under Clinton, either.
The press don't care because of structural reasons not because of a belief system common to Americans. Press reporting is systemically biased in favor of powerful interests that influence them by carrot and by stick.
Nerds on message boards also think that the country is outraged alongside them about TSA scans. But I listened to Talk of the Nation this week on the new TSA pocketknife policy, and the sentiment was overwhelmingly in the other direction --- "I fly with my children, so I think anything we can do to make ourself more safe...". People are angry at TSA... for relaxing restrictions on carry-on items!
I opt out of the electronic strip search at every airport. How many times do you guess I've seen someone else opting out at the same time? Zero.
I went to college in Atlanta, Georgia (a pretty liberal place as far as the South goes). A year or so after the 9/11 bombing, I remember my classmates talking about how we should turn the Middle East into a glass parking lot. Quite seriously, with zero disagreement from anyone else. This was at a well-regarded engineering school, so these weren't stupid people, and indeed they were all very nice guys. We're just a tribal people--it's "our tribe" versus "their tribe" and the use of force on people outside the tribe is seen dramatically differently than the use of force on people within the tribe.
You don't need to reach to "bias" and "powerful interests" to see why the media reports the way it does. The media is a reflection of the beliefs of the American people.
I was in school next door at Georgia State about a year after that. The way I remember it was that the entire campus was basically wailing and gnashing their teeth at the prospect of war with Iraq.
I don't remember anyone, except me, who was pro war (btw I'm ashamed that I supported the war back then--before I shifted to more libertarian views).
I was actually quite opposed to the Iraq war (on time/money grounds, not pacifism) but I was quite definitely in the minority. Then again, Georgia Tech is a pretty conservative place as far as universities go, especially within the engineering departments. I think the political tone was closer to the mainstream, though, than what is the case at other universities.
> The media is a reflection of the beliefs of the American people.
That's backwards. For issues of political significance the beliefs of the American (or other) people are a reflection of messages produced by the media. Iraq war mongering was proliferated by the media, as desired by the state.
I think that different Americans believe different things. Believe it or not, your paragraph of an anecdote from 11 years ago doesn't do much to convince me otherwise.
What's your point? Yes, there is a minority of Americans that cares about drones blowing up people in Yemen. The media does not cater to those people. None of this refutes my point.
Does "minority" here mean 49%? 1%? You don't know, you don't care. You're pretending to argue using data but really just going from your gut beliefs about media, not from any basis in fact other those precious few you've selectively picked to form your opinion over the years.
The American press has never been opposed to blowing up foreigners, because Americans believe it is our god-given right to blow up foreigners. This is true regardless of what party is in power. To the extent that there is opposition, it is rooted solely on the impact of military action on Americans--servicemen killed in action, money spent out of the Treasury, etc. That's why the press finally turned against Bush when Iraq continued to drag on. And that's also why the press doesn't care about drone strikes--the American drone operators aren't getting shot at nor do they cost us a lot of money. That's why they didn't care about cruise missiles under Clinton, either.