Media Coverage in Afghanistan

Christian over at Ghosts of Alexander has the interesting idea of tracking this story about the killing of the Kandahar Police Chief to see how information comes out of Afghanistan. While his analysis of the project will be out later this week, Registan also has an overview of reporting on the event. He repeats that analysis of a reporter friend in Kandahar “there is a feeling of ‘the final straw’ in people’s reactions to the news.".

...the initial reports were wrong, but that seems to drive opinion in many parts of Afghanistan—whatever you heard first, so it is. Some unreported context to the incident...who knows how that might have affected things as well.

Did the U.S. or Coalition have a hand—even a very indirect one—in today’s killing? We won’t know for a bit... If—and this is a big “if,” as we just don’t know yet—this turns out to have connections to SF-types, the General McChrystal’s much ballyhooed push for a lighter special operations footprint is certainly off to a great start.

This is not only an important story its an important reminder of the role that western media plays in establishing local opinion about events.