You may recall that in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, big-time reporters like the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller justified the media's refusal to ask substantive questions challenging pre-war assertions by saying that she and her fellow Beltway reporters just felt the need to be "very deferential" because it was too "frightening to stand up there [and] ask the president of the United States a question when the country's about to go to war" and really, "no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time." You may also recall that Knight Ridder Newspapers was just about the only news outlet consistently challenging the White House at that "very serious time," actually doing real "journalism" to see whether the government's claims were true or not. Well, Knight Ridder has now become McClatchy, but it looks like its courageous reporting hasn't changed.
Here's the McClatchy dispatch today - it is totally depressing but nonetheless laudable that the chain's journalists are once again challenging government propaganda about how everything is supposedly just totally awesome in Iraq:
"Despite U.S. claims that violence is down in the Iraqi capital, U.S. military officers are offering a bleak picture of Iraq's future, saying they've yet to see any signs of reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims despite the drop in violence... That downbeat assessment comes despite a buildup of U.S. troops that began five months ago Wednesday and has seen U.S. casualties reach the highest sustained levels since the United States invaded Iraq nearly four and a half years ago...Violence remains endemic...
And while top U.S. officials insist that 50 percent of the capital is now under effective U.S. or government control, compared with 8 percent in February, statistics indicate that the improvement in violence is at best mixed...U.S. officials say the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capital is down 50 percent. But U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don't support the claim.
The number of car bombings in July actually was 5 percent higher than the number recorded last December, according to the McClatchy statistics, and the number of civilians killed in explosions is about the same...Military officers serving in Iraq say much of the difficulties they're encountering are owed to mistakes that U.S. officials made in the early years of the war...No pattern of improvement is discernible for violence during the five months of the surge." (emphasis added)
No surprise - Republican lawmakers are ignoring these facts and instead running around telling their constituents that the Bush escalation of the war is working wonders. And the White House is now publicly thanking the same Washington reporters who asked no questions before the Iraq War for now providing glowing coverage of the supposed success of the escalation, and ignoring the facts that suggest the strategy is misguided and a misuse of our troops. I'm sure our D.C. press corps justifies its cheerleading with the same rationale as before: Its just too frightening to stand up there and ask the president of the United States any questions when the country's escalating the war, because really - no one wants to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time.
Nonetheless, at least McClatchy and a few other courageous reporters every now and then have the nerve to keep us informed with the facts, as depressing and tragic as they are. They understand that a journalist's role in a democracy is not to worship power and Washington celebrity, but yes - to "stand up there" and ask the tough questions precisely at those "very serious times."
Cross-posted from Working Assets