No Shame, No Blame -- Media Refuse to Face Up to Role in Iraq Disaster
In the thousands of articles and television reports in recent days surrounding the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq -- and the grim milestone of 4,000 U.S. troops dead there -- nearly every important aspect was probed, and fingers were pointed: at Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer or Dick Cheney, at stubborn Republicans or weak-willed Democrats, and at many others. But conspicuously absent as a subject in the media analysis and reassessment were... the media.
It's as if the war had been planned, launched, and continued for more than half a decade with hardly any major media slips or tragic omissions. The media, with months to plan for the five-year commemoration, were ready to take stock of everything but themselves. By and large, when they did review their role, it was to showcase some of the undeniably terrific reporting, photography, and videography that have emerged from the war zone.
A frank assessment of the overall media performance, from the "run-up" to the "surge," was nearly non-existent. That's not only shameful and revealing -- it's a real missed opportunity, since there is so much to be learned from it by current and future generations of journalists.
Yes, the fateful media mistakes and misreporting of Iraqi WMD before the war has been covered in the past, although with few apologies. But how could this not be widely revisited at the five-year mark -- beyond PBS and NPR -- with 4,000 American dead and thousands wounded for life?
What about the removal of the vast majority of U.S. reporters from Iraq in the early days of the occupation, just when they were most needed to warn of the daily Coalition blunders and emerging insurgency? The media's role in falling victim to official propaganda in the
Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman cases? The delay in exposing the abuses at Abu Ghraib -- and attacks on civilians in Haditha and numerous other places?
The list goes on: Why did it take years to really focus on ill treatment of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans back here at home? To expose the rising suicide rates among soldiers in Iraq and returning vets? To assess the full trillion-dollar financial costs of the war, now a hot topic but
underplayed for so long? And what did editors, reporters, and producers learn from all of these significant oversights?
Why didn't the media fight harder the Pentagon's ban on showing coffins returning from Iraq? Why, for the most part, did they refuse to show dead or injured American soldiers from the war zone, thus preventing the public from absorbing the true human costs of the conflict? On reflection, what were the strengths and weaknesses of the much-ballyhooed "embedded" journalists program? Any second thoughts?
What about the reluctance of editorial pages and pundits to propose, even tentatively, a real change in course in Iraq, as month after month and then year after year passed? Almost four years went by before a leading newspaper called for the beginning of even a very slow, phased withdrawal. What do they think of that delay now? Why do the many columnists who were so wrong about the war fail to come clean about their mistakes?
And just in recent months: Why are there so few reporters covering the war now? Are budgetary excuses and blaming readers for not being very interested anymore really valid? Or do readers take their cues from the (increasingly disinterested) media?
I was grateful for one thing, at least. Nearly five years ago, when I was virtually the first to refer to Iraq, in print, as a coming "quagmire" -- it's one chapter in my new book on Iraq and the media -- I was widely ridiculed for making this patently absurd Vietnam reference. In his fifth anniversary review on March 16, John F. Burns, the famous New York Times war correspondent, used the phrase "Iraq quagmire" in passing, as a fact, not in quotes or as a claim by others. A fact.
As I have often indicated, there has been an ample amount of truly heroic journalism from the war zone and tough-minded probing into the causes and conduct of the war here at home. But the media's current failure to examine some of the questions above only adds to the black mark they have received for past miscues and errors in judgment related to this catastrophic war.
Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq (Union Square Press, $11). It has been hailed by our own Arianna, Bill Moyers, Glenn Greenwald, and others, and features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and foreword by Joe Galloway. He is editor of Editor & Publisher. He can be reached at: gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com
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Well, yes and no. Yes, the media can't decide elections, march in the streets, or drown politicians in mountains of protest letters and emails. But it can seek out and publish the truth. That was its original business plan, in theory. Now, not so much, unless it's The Truth about Brittney. Point taken.
No, the public is not omniscient or even very good at picking leaders. Like Blanche DuBois in "Streetcar Named Desire," the public has always been dependent on the kindness of strangers, specifically, the strange people that run for public office.
Sometimes we (the public) get lucky and get the right leader at the right time (Washingto
There's nothing in the immutable laws of history or physics that says the US will last forever. Cultures, societies, governments, all eventually fall from their own excesses and built in contradictions. It's only a question of when. The failure of the media is just one tiny piece of the puzzle.
Thank you for finally saying this. I was sickened in the run-up and the wow and thunder and felt as though no one was asking any questions with all of the flags on display. I love this country, but felt sorely lacking during that time any of the hard questioning, much less free speech, that makes me love it. Its hard to imagine how we all accepted a resolution that defied logic, reason, the U.N. Security Council and world opinon without so much as a low growl of disapproval from our watchdogs or our own voices. Arrogance or zeal, I know not which can explain it.
To this day, I still, for the life of me,. can't understand how the media continues to report the tragic loss of now 4000 lives, with no or but highly scarce reference to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives lost.
I am not of those who say automatically leave now and leave that people to the horror we've created for them. But I sick, to this day, as to how this could have been allowed by us, collectively, when it was a conscious decision being made to invade.
Blame George Bush if you like, but where were was the hue and cry when it was truly needed.
The media puts too much blame on itself and Bush. The majority of blame for this war lies squarely with the American people.
The American public might get a pass on being misled about WMD, but the public accepted all of the other dubious pre-war justifications Bush used: the war would be paid for by oil; Iraqis would welcome us; democracy would spread; etc.. The public unwisely believed these nonfactual _predictions_.
By 2004 we knew all about the war, it's mistaken justification, and its mishandled aftermath. Yet the public re-elected George Bush.
Even now continuation of the war, though disliked, is tacitly approved by the public. Opposition to the war may seem high, but it is broad not deep. McCain supports the war without suffereing in the polls. We might again elect a president who sees no mistake in Iraq and who will continue the occupation.
The public's opinions and choices are affected by the media. But we should not let absolve the public because of the media's flawed reporting. The fundamental information about the war was before the public and Bush's predictions could have been questioned. Yet the public permitted this war. Why? Is the wisdom of the public declining, or is the public still misinformed about Iraq?
When things go wrong in America, we tend to look for actors responsible; the media, the government, particular individuals, etc. Why do we never blame the public? Has the public become an inept decision maker? If so, why?
the media's job is to present events, not policy proposals, thus why they didn't recommend withdrawal earlier, though that's a complete lie because they did. I mean, isn't this media? Isn't this article completely ironic? There are plenty of ultra-liberal media outlets that did nothing but bash the war, and if you want to talk about mainstream media there was still coverage of protests, and you still have to blame the public for believing obvious lies. As soon as I heard that we might invade Iraq it seemed obvious to me that there was no connection to Bin Laden, and not only the public but many politicians did not come to this conclusion for years, so you can hardly blame the media.
Only idiots take what the mainstream media says as gospel and it's impossible to prove that media coverage defines public opinion and not vice versa (members of the media ARE members of the public and in many ways represent the same spectrum).
If you want to blame someone, blame people who write articles like this one, blame people who post comments like this one, blame people who think chanting in a protest does anything productive. The fact of the matter is there is no effective or immediate outlet for radical politics, and that the majority of Americans will never feel the way the far Left does.
I do not agree that there were mainstream media outlets covering protests. More to the point, I don't believe there were any protests. The event in NYC before the war was the only "protest" of any note, and that was sort of just a whimper before the bang. While I don't know whether it would have made a difference had there been protest, that is why I say the public allowed this to happen. I also believe the media allowed the public to allow this to happen. I can not explain the general willingness to "accept" wmd when the people responsible to account on that question were saying there were none. I still remember Colin Powell's speech with photographs of suspicious activity and reacting in disbelief and embarrassment when most folks were saying "see?" , there you go. After all Colin Powell is an honorable guy, so if he says so, it must be true. Its inexpicable to me to this day that the public AND the media who investigate and inform told the story and listened to its telling the way they did.
No, only idiots take what politicians say as gospel and that's exactly what the MSM did and does. Not only is it the media's job to "present" events (why no flag-draped coffins?), it is the job of journalists to maintain healthy scepticism, investigate the truth of government,/ corporate claims and report those findings to the public in as objective a manor as is humanly possible. The corporate directors of the publicly-held media companies don't give a tinker's damn for that mission. They view their sole responsibility as delivering profits to increase shareholder value. If they percieve the public wants to put on lapel pins and wave the flag while brooking no criticism of the president, (witness the Dixie Chicks) that's exactly what we'll get. They are now strictly in the business of giving the public, not what it needs which is unvarnished truth, but what it wants--bread and circuses. I've worked in broadcasting for 30+ years, and, while it's a tiny bit better in newspapers, I can attest to the fact that the entire focus is on ratings (which translate to eyeballs to ad dollars generated) and if Brittney will deliver them, Brittany is what you'll see. About six months after "shock & awe," a prominent news consultant advised our top-ten station managment not to run too many stories about the war--people were "turned off" by the lack of progress.
Totally agree. The blame for the mess in Iraq lies squarely with we the people.
I was thinking of this the other day while listening to an interview with the guy who wrote "X Saves the World." He was saying how Gen X rejected the street protests of their parents' generation in favor of simply being "ironic." We're now seeing how well that's working out.
The fact is, Bush/Cheney don't give a shit about the irony served up by smirky late-night TV comedians for our amusement. What would catch their attention, and the media's attention, would be tens of thousands of angry protesters taking to the streets, confronting cops and troops, putting their life and limb on the line. That's the only form of protest tyrants fear. It was true 2,000 years ago and it's true today.
It sickens me to hear smart-alecky revisionist history about how the protesters of the '60s really didn't change anything. Ask any biographer of LBJ, Nixon or Kissinger about how these guys feared the wrath of the mob, and how this fear profoundly changed the scale on which the U.S. waged war in the years between Vietnam and Iraq. The only thing that make Iraq possible is that the White House has correctly calculated that Americans today are too cowardly, lethargic, and self-centered to take to the streets in great numbers.
If you think there were fewer prostesters, then you are WRONG; there were MORE prostesters in the streets before the invasion of Iraq than during the entire Vietnam war.
If you think that BushCo merely "calculated" the ease in deceiving the populace, the you are WRONG.
If you think that our social structure, media reaction and government policies are the same concerning social unrest and the media's role in war coverage, then once again, you are WRONG.
We are part of the problem, but to a much lesser degree than you have proposed.
You are indulging in exactly what you accuse the public at large of doing...ed
http://www
There is no denying that the US populace is partially responsible for not rising up and stopping this catastrophy, but this statement:
"The media puts too much blame on itself and Bush. The majority of blame for this war lies squarely with the American people."
Is so wrong-minded that it's hard for me to get my mind around--not what you're saying, but that you can be so misinformed or so willfully ignorant to what you're really promoting with that kind of statement.
The entire invasion of Iraq was contrived; there were no WMD, no ultimate plan to take democracy to the Iraqis, and no pressing need to depose Saddam--and we all know now that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
So we had a president and cabinet who purposefully planned to invade Iraq even before 9/11 [pending a good excuse to do so], we had a corrupt and complacent congress that bent to the will of Bush, and we had a 4th Estate that fell into lockstep behind all of these corrupt forces, promoting an illegal, aggressive war action against a sovereign nation that had not attacked us--yet the primary responsibility for this falls to the US public?
We do indeed share the blame, but we are far from the most responsible party in this criminal travesty.
To understand why that is true, I would suggest you buy or rent the documentary "The Corporation":
http://www
Why not go back to how Bush was installed ILLEGALLY by the Supreme Court?
Seems that this whole bit of national tragedy started when the media just said "Oh well.." to an illegitmate/illegal ruling by the Supreme Court that created an illegal administration.
If the media would have done it's job of informing the citizenry of what was really going on in the 2000 election debacle, I wonder if we would be in the circumstances we find ourselves in today.
Don't get it. What information was the public not aware of?
The blood of all the murdered US soldiers and citizens of Iraq is on the hands of every member of the main stream media. Their cries of injustice will forever haunt your souls. The MSM is culpable in all these deaths because you spewed and repeated every lie uttered by President Bush and his lying administration. You sanctioned and gave legs to all the lies that resulted in all the deaths of our soldiers and the Iraqis not to mention the dismembered, burned, mentally and physically mutilated who will never be whole again. Plus all the births missed, divorces caused. Missed life events because so many were sent to kill and die for this presidents lies that you the MSM repeated and sanctioned, repeated and sanctioned, repeated and sanctioned
I'm sure you've heard of Karma.
You will never be able to build enough pagodas to atone for these transgressions.
Have a happy life
in anger, despair and disgust
Michelle
4/06/2007 (yes this is correct I originally sent this to CNN a year ago. A lot of us have known for along time what the truth was on Bush's invasion and the complacency of the congress and the media in allowing it all to happen.)
All that may be true.
The problem is, they don't care.
The only remnant of the Fourth Estate is on the internet. The MSM are just corporate whores.
The amount of prime TV time devoted to Paris,Brit
The largest construction project in US history is the tunnel under Boston [the big dig] it cost 12 billion dollars about the cost every month for the war
Why does no one talk about the worlds largest embassy [no not in the largest country] in Iraq
The MSM could care less about truth in reporting. The only things they appear capable of doing today is spewing their personal opinions and the opinions of their employers. This is not the media we boomers grew up with 30 to 40 years ago - there is no semblance of that media. I guess it is like many other jobs that America used to have - they have been outsourced - and I hope ourthis MSM will be outsourced before the end of this year! "Used to" died long ago!
How many Iraqis dead? Last I heard it was 600,000? Why doesn't our media mention it?
Not American = nobody cares
The four sets of Iraqi civilian death numbers that are being reported are as follows:
1.2 million "Opinion Research Business (ORB), is a UK-based polling agency. It extrapolated the figure since the 2003 invasion by asking a random sample of 1,461 Iraqi adults how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes. (This figure is used by BBC in its news reports.).
http://www
650,000 The Lancet surveys of casualties of the Iraq War, - conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, does not differentiate between the invasion phase (March-May 2003) and the occupation phase (post May 2003).
http://www
130,000 according to Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari .Based his figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals " such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.
71,00 to 78,000 - Iraq Body Count a group that relies on Western press reports to measure civilian casualties http://www
*According to Media Lens, "the mainstream media are continuing to use figures provided by the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) to sell the public a number for total post-invasion deaths of Iraqis that is perhaps 5-10% of the true death toll."
Because the corporations(GE, TimeWarner, Disney) that employ these 'journalists' have a vested interest in keeping the 'war' going on forever. Perpetural war=perpetual profit. Sometimes it really IS only about the money.
hopeless277
It is ultimately only about the money. You are right.
Our American commonwealth, including our commonly owned airwaves, has since the Reagan Administration, been gradually liquidated under the Orwellian guise of returning wealth and control to "the people" .
Once, the broadcast and print media were held in high regard as the "4th Estate", an important check/balance component on par with the Judiciary, the Legislative, and the Executive branches of government. The media served as watchdog for all three. Now, like the other three, the post-Reagan media has become just one more giant sucking machine, siphoning money out of American pockets.
It's as true now, as it was during Watergate, "Follow the Money". Corporate ownership of the MSM, Administration Demagoguery, failure to insure journalistic safety in-country have, among many other things, made it virtually impossible to adequately vet this Imperialistic incursion into a sovereign nation. It is gut wrenching, to me, to think that the Fox Network has gained such prominence with the brain dead electorate.
Now we look to be in even greater danger, what with information coming out of Russia, Germany, and Saudi Arabia regarding the imminent invasion of Iran. Where is the MSM on this issue? Why isn't somebody screaming bloody murder in print and on the airwaves. I have a talk radio show in Tampa on a little Mom and Pop station and have been screaming about this possibility for months, but who the hell am I ? http://www
Just think back to the litany of "Accomplishments", of this neo-con cabal, then look at yourself in the mirror and say, "It is not possible". I DARE YOU!!!!!!!
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