The new book by Bush’s ex-spokseman, Scott McClellen (What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception) has the press blaming the Bush admin and blaming the author, but nary a news item about where the real blame lies in misleading America on the facts of Iraq: “”And through it all, the media would serve as complicit enablers… The national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.”
Scottie’s book has little new about how the White House sold the War or outed CIA-op Ms. Plame. What is new is his opinion that the people he saw daily on the other side of podium, i.e. the DC press corps, weren’t doing their jobs: “The media would neglect their watchdog role, focusing less on truth and accuracy and more on whether the campaign was succeeding”
The media have rose as one to ignore the the accusations in their typical hear-no-evil fashion; as in this from the LA Times, D.C. journalists to Scott McClellan: Huh?.
There are a few exceptions:
Editor & Publisher, Media, Who Got War Wrong, Take Exception to Scott McClellan’s Charges— “Most, on Wednesday, still defended their coverage. But few have ever really come to terms with the magnitude of their failure.”
CJR, Pre-Iraq War Coverage: “Pretty Good Job” or “Embarrassing?” and Yellin: News Execs Pushed For Positive Bush Stories— “When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings.”
Salon, Scott McClellan on the “liberal media”— “The New York Times and The Washington Post both trumpet the fact that McClellan made statements harshly critical of Bush. But they completely ignore McClellan’s far more significant indictment of their ‘deferential,’ Bush-enabling conduct. Isn’t it rather self-evidently newsworthy that Bush’s own press secretary blamed the American media for allowing Bush to get away with all sorts of falsehoods?”
The Salon article refers to an excellent earlier press self-eval by Howard Kurtz:
WA Post (2004), The Post on WMDs An Inside Story: Prewar Articles Questioning Threat Often Didn’t Make Front Page— “‘The paper was not front-paging stuff,’ said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. ‘Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we’re going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?'”
And congrats to Jake Tapper for extensive press-related quotes from the book:
ABC News, McClellan: Media During Run-Up to Iraq Were “Complicit Enablers”—
“And through it all, the media would serve as complicit enablers. Their primary focus would be on covering the campaign to sell the war, rather than aggressively questioning the rationale for war or pursuing the truth behind it… the media would neglect their watchdog role, focusing less on truth and accuracy and more on whether the campaign was succeeding. Was the president winning or losing the argument? How were Democrats responding? What were the electoral implications? What did the polls say? And the truth–about the actual nature of the threat posed by Saddam, the right way to confront it, and the possible risks of military conflict–would get largely left behind…”
“If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should have never come as such a surprise. The public should have been made much more aware, before the fact, of the uncertainties, doubts, and caveats that underlay the intelligence about the regime of Saddam hussein. The administration did little to convey those nuances to the people, the press should have picked up the slack but largely failed to do so because their focus was elsewhere–on covering the march to war, instead of the necessity of war.
In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”
“The network that can find a way to shift from excessively covering controversy, the conventional horse race and image-driven coverage to give a greater emphasis to who is right and who is wrong, who is telling the truth and who is not, and the larger truths about our society and our world might achieve some amazing results in our fast-changing media environment.”
The press is likely comforatable continuing to pretend it wasn’t the principle percussionist beating the 2003 war-drum. The public, however, may not be: Make Mainstream Media Answer for Spreading Propaganda.
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