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Monday, May 8, 2006 |
Salon: "Cowardly and clueless, the U.S. media abandoned its post as Bush led the country into a disastrous war. A look inside one of the great journalistic collapses of our time.
Battered by accusations of a liberal bias and determined to prove their conservative critics wrong, the press during the run-up to the war - timid, deferential, unsure, cautious, and often intentionally unthinking - came as close as possible to abdicating its reason for existing in the first place, which is to accurately inform citizens, particularly during times of great national interest. Indeed, the MSM's failings were all the more important because of the unusually influential role they played in advance of the war-of-choice with Iraq.
In truth, Bush never could have ordered the invasion of Iraq - never could have sold the idea at home - if it weren't for the help he received from the MSM, and particularly the stamp of approval he received from so-called liberal media institutions such as the Washington Post, which in February of 2003 alone, editorialized in favor of war nine times. (Between September 2002 and February 2003, the paper editorialized twenty-six times in favor of the war.)
While some journalists admitted their mistakes, most refused to admit it was political pressure from the right and a fear of being labeled unpatriotic that fueled the timidity. Instead, journalists offered up head-scratching explanations for their timorous prewar performance.
A telling and comprehensive media study of the WMD coverage conducted by Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) and the University of Maryland and released in March 2004 concluded too many press stories simply repeated the official line on WMD regarding the Iraq war, and that most journalist accepted the Bush administration's linking of the War on Terror with WMDs, while at the same time failing to note that there was no precedent of terror organizations demonstrating the capacity to use WMDs. Simply put, 'The American media did not play the role of checking and balancing the exercise of power that the standard theory of democracy requires,' according to CISSM, which monitored WMD coverage between October 2002 and May 2003 from seven U.S. news outlets: Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, US News & World Report, as well as NPR's Morning Edition and 'All Things Considered'.
The White House alone controlled virtually all the information about the war on terrorism and it alone decided how that information was disseminated. The press, anxious for access, eagerly played along.
Why were tens of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent - nearly 9,000 police officers and military personnel were deployed - to transform a public celebration of democracy into a show of foreboding military force? And was it all simply a political ploy for a White House that thrived on the issue of national security?"
Lapdogs.
The game is blown now. History will judge Bush and Blair to be liars and war criminals. But they have amassed enough power to continue the rape of democracy for some time. Bush is preparing more prisons in the US. And the lies and cheats continue. The connivance of the press has been demonstrated. The crucial question is: Will the mainstream media continue their collaboration with war criminals when these plan a new illegal war against Iran and continue to condone the fiasco in Iraq and Afghanistan?
CBSNews: "Two London papers have speculated this weekend that complaints by President George W. Bush forced a British minister from his post because of his opposition to the use of nuclear force against Iran."
AsiaTimes: "'The Bush administration touts the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan as a success story,' [a CorpWatch] report said, but claimed that reconstruction has been bungled by 'many of the same politically connected corporations which are doing similar work in Iraq', receiving 'massive open-ended contracts' without competitive bidding or with limited competition."
Independent: "May 2006: Five British soldiers die as a missile brings down their helicopter. Iraqis celebrate and a firefight kills five more as UK forces rush to the scene. Iraqis continue to be killed in vast numbers throughout the country."
The YouTube videos (see my earlier post) of Colbert's satire have been removed 'due to copyright infringement'.
Update: the new link is here.
11:50:21 AM 
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