Abstract

Floating With the Tide

Two new studies--one by Michael Massing in the February 26 "New York Review of Books," which surveys news articles; the other by Chris Mooney in the March/April "Columbia Journalism Review," which examines unsigned editorials--document the extent to which [the U.S.] elite press sailed with the stream in the decisive months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Together, these articles paint a disconcerting portrait of a timid, credulous press corps that, when confronted by an Administration intent on war, sank to new depths of obsequiousness and docility. Embedded in Massing's prosecutorial brief against the press are the following charges: the dissemination of White House misinformation on Iraq; the embrace of dubious Iraqi defectors and exiles as sources; a lack of curiosity about debates in the intelligence community concerning US allegations about Iraq's WMD capabilities; and a cavalier disregard for the International Atomic Energy Agency. Much of Massing's firepower is directed at the "New York Times" in general and one reporter--Judith Miller--in particular. The only national news organization that emerges. unscathed from Massing's inquiry is the low-profile Washington bureau of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, whose hard-hitting stories were based on the doubts and fears of military, intelligence and diplomatic officials, many of whom believed that the White House was misinterpreting and fabricating evidence about Iraq's bellicosity. CJR's survey of editorials makes it distressingly apparent that our top newspapers did not abstain from the chance to inform their readers about "what the government thought of Iraq's supposed arsenal.