Iraq and the Media
All right, this is a long piece — like about 40 FRIGGIN’ PAGES — but it’s too awesome to pass up. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting has compiled a history of reporting on Iraq from September 2002 through May 2003. FAIR introduces their piece like this:
It’s hardly controversial to suggest that the mainstream media’s performance in the lead-up to the Iraq War was a disaster. In retrospect, many journalists and pundits wish they had been more skeptical of the White House’s claims about Iraq, particularly its allegations about weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, though, media apologists suggest that the press could not have done much better, since “everyone” was in agreement on the intelligence regarding Iraq’s weapons threat. This was never the case. Critical journalists and analysts raised serious questions at the time about what the White House was saying. Often, however, their warnings were ignored by the bulk of the corporate press.
This timeline is an attempt to recall some of the worst moments in journalism, from the fall of 2002 and into the early weeks of the Iraq War. It is not an exhaustive catalog, but a useful reference point for understanding the media’s performance. The timeline also points to missed opportunities, when courageous journalists—working inside the mainstream and the alternative media—uncovered stories that should have made the front pages of daily newspapers, or provided fodder for TV talk shows. By reading mainstream media critically and tuning into the alternative press, citizens can see that the notion that “everyone” was wrong about Iraq was—and is—just another deception.
FAIR’s report spans from
September 7, 2002
—Speaking of the need to disarm Iraq, George W. Bush refers to a report by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) alleging that Iraq was six months away from developing a nuclear weapon. No such report exists, as MSNBC reports on its website (oddly, the article was quickly removed from MSNBC‘s website, as Paul Krugman would note months later—4/29/03). Bush’s lie mostly escapes media scrutiny; as John MacArthur recalled months later (Columbia Journalism Review, 5/603), the Washington Post half-heartedly acknowledged the problem deep in a story:
In the twenty-first paragraph of her story on the press conference, the Washington Post‘s Karen DeYoung did quote an IAEA spokesman saying, in DeYoung’s words, “that the agency has issued no new report,” but she didn’t confront the White House with this terribly interesting fact.
to
May 31, 2003
—Referring to the two trailers found in Iraq, the Washington Post reports that Bush proclaimed, “For those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices and banned weapons, they’re wrong. We found them.”
No evidence exists to back up Bush’s claim. It would soon be determined that the trailers were used for hydrogen production, as Iraqi scientists had claimed all along-as did former weapons inspector Scott Ritter (Fox News Channel, 5/28/03).
Here is FAIR’s great piece in its entirety.