B-52s flew from Diego Garcia and bombed Afghanistan. There were also a couple B-2s that flew all the way from their base at Whiteman AFB, dropped their bombs, then flew to Diego. In addition, it was reported that B-1s have participated from the beginning.

I've seen news footage of B-52s flying very high over Afghanistan. They obviously weren't there sightseeing.

As for the reporting, it may just be sloppiness on the part of reporters who seldom get military or aviation stories right anyway, or it could be that inexperienced reporters are just talking about the carpet bombing as something new to them. As for the reporting in general, I've lost count of how many "new phases" we've gone through since the bombing began a few weeks ago.