What’s more newsworthy: President Obama’s decision to declassify C.I.A. documents on torture, or the actual contents of those documents? The U.S. media chose the former, and in doing so, has once again failed the public in providing clarity and context on a complex issue – failing to ask hard-hitting, provocative questions, and failing to hold our political leaders accountable.

Rather than investigate what these memos reveal about the harsh interrogation techniques implemented under the Bush administration and who can be implicated for using torture, our media has focused their debate on political posturing and gossip surrounding Obama’s decision to release the memos.

A report by Link TV compares U.S. coverage of the torture memos to the international press coverage in countries like Chile, Iran, and France. If we’re ashamed as a nation about torture, we should also be embarrassed about how our press coverage of torture stacks up.