Gary Kamiya – Salon – April 10, 2007:
It’s no secret that the period of time between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq represents one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media. Every branch of the media failed, from daily newspapers, magazines and Web sites to television networks, cable channels and radio. I’m not going to go into chapter and verse about the media’s specific failures, its credulousness about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds and failure to make clear that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 — they’re too well known to repeat. In any case, the real failing was not in any one area; it was across the board. Bush administration lies and distortions went unchallenged, or were actively promoted.
But perhaps the press’s most notable failure was its inability to determine just why this disastrous war was ever launched.
Of course, the media was not alone in its collapse. Congress rolled over and gave Bush authorization to go to war. And the majority of the American people, traumatized by 9/11, followed their delusional president down the primrose path. Had the media done its job, Bush’s war of choice might still have taken place. But we’ll never know.
Fox was the worst, but the rest of the mainstream media was clearly influenced by the perceived need to be “Americans first and journalists second.” This was manifested less in obviously biased or flawed stories than in subtler ways: the simple failure to investigate Bush administration claims, go outside the magic circle of approved wise men, or in general aggressively question the whole surreal adventure. This failure was even more glaring because the run-up to war took place in slow motion. For nine months or more, everyone knew Bush was determined to attack Iraq, and no one really knew why. Yet the mainstream media was unable to break out of its stupor. At a critical moment, that stupor appeared almost literal.
“..But perhaps the press’s most notable failure was its inability to determine just why this disastrous war was ever launched…”
Um… Becasue they were paid to look the other way?
And calling Fox News the “worst” is only the understatement of the year – fox news is about as news-worthy as a bunch of nappy-headed ho’s.
As a fairly staunch conservative, I am most appalled about this matter. The war was started with now real reason, and no one was able to point this out clearly enough to prevent the disaster we are now left with.
Unfortunately, it will be the job of the next president to sort things out as this one is going to ride the mess in Iraq right into the ground.
Oh well, maybe the next Clinton will so annoy the country that Republicans may again have a chance at Congress at her first midterm election like in 94.
Don
Hunter S. Thompson said that he believed the US had a nervous breakdown, following the terrible events of September 11.
Duh.
4. “This article makes it sound as if they think the press is back on the job.”
Good point!
5. “Duh”
English really needs a different question mark when you’re asking a rhetorical question.
…and yet another symbol for the “news headline” question mark
8 – Bravo! That’s a great video.
Is Bush a great president?
Weird – I got cut off. Probably for inserting left-angle brackets pointing to the question and labeling the cavuto. Had some others too, such as “Is Fox the worst propaganda mill posturing as news ever foisted on a public? [note cavuto]
Whatever. As for the current crop of reporters and editors who skirt the hard truths, it’s hardly the first time. A long time ago Upton Sinclair noticed the same thing and commented: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
As much as I dislike Fox, it was everyone else that was the problem. There was piratically a complete lack of nerve by the media to challenge Cheney. You wouldn’t expect it from Fox, but you’d expect someone else to step up, but that’s not what we wanted to hear.
The real failure was ours. We voted in Bush/Cheney the first and second time. We got what we wanted to hear. We’ll be paying the price for a long, long time.
#3. HST has it right – nervous breakdown, temporary insanity, whatever. that is how the history books will write it. I can see the comparison to the McCarthyite era’s reaction to the fall of China and the Russian atom bomb.
If we had a decent president at the time, he would have reined in the fear, not exploited it for his own purposes. when the dust all settles, people looking back will see it as a great opportunity that was lost through the incompetence and arrogance of the Bush Administration.
The press will take a hit, too, especially for the big role the NYT played in pushing the Iraq war, but the media as a whole will be damned for falling in line.
Yea we sure could have used this media back in world war 2 we could have used Pearl Harbor to garner sympathy from the world and maybe those sanctions on Germany and Japan might had some effect by now.
We would also all be speaking German and wondering what a jew actually looked like, but the world like us and that is what really counts isn’t it
think about it if we had this kind of press continually showing only the bad things( if you remember we spent a large part of WW2 getting our butts kicked before we turned it around and made it a world altering victory) going on we could have never won WW2. I think not
wussies all of you
actually, the press did cover the US getting its butt kicked during the early months of WW2. But then, FDR did not decide that, after Pearl Harbor, we should make up a reason to attack Spain.
yeah, we’re wussies. brave people don’t worry about sending other people off to die. It also takes real courage to support torture and indefinite detention without access to the courts of people that everyone hates.
The media faced several hurdles right after 9/11.
First, most news organizations had faced cut backs and reporter lay-offs in the years preceding 9/11.
Second, after years of being accused of being too “liberal”, the news media started putting a more conservative spin on things.
Third, although they are not lazy, reporters and the news media were inclined to believe the government wouldn’t lie to them, especially about national security.
Fourth, reporters like Seymor Hirsh dug up information but other organizations didn’t have the expertise or reporters on the ground to verify Hirsh or expand his reports.
Fifth, Gitmo and Abu Graib were the awakening that the government in general and the Bush Administration in particular were giving the American public a bill of goods.
I have a difficult time blaming the media. They too were lied to by Bush. Put the blame for the Iraq War where it belongs, the man who lied to Congress in order to gain authorization. The Administration who lied to Congress and the Congress that didn’t oversee the government.
If I remember correctly we did watch on CNN the coalition of 30 countries run the Iraq Army out of Kuwait in the early nineties; we really enjoyed our army doing what was the right thing to do live and directly from Iraq.
That gave Ted Turner some heavy duty clout and polished some buttons on a lot of uniforms.
After 9/11 we were ready for more CNN, MSNBC and FOX.. So it comes as no surprise that it was easy for the news media and our president to give us what we wanted. We as a nation voted for the second war.
The job of the news is to report to the citizens what th3e government wants us to know. The job of t.
he ciT
#15. Oh, I don’t blame the media for anything. Blaming the messenger is one of the sure signs of indefensible failure. Let the proponents of the war blame the media for its current unpopularity.
I do point the finger at them for rolling over in the wake of 9/11. Times of national emergency call for a more, not less, skeptical and vigilant media, to ensure that the government does not misuse the situation.
I am not saying that they could have, or even should have, stopped the Iraq war. That is for the elected branches of government. But they did unquestioningly follow the line coming out of the White House, and thus abdicated their adversarial role.
And cutbacks? limited resources? They always had enough reporters to cover Chandra Levy, Jon Benet Ramsey, and all the other shite they fed into the maw of the 24-hour news monster.
And what happened to the guys who became reporters because of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers? People who presumed that the government was lying to them and dug and dug to find the truth, rather than sit back and have propaganda spoon fed to them.
Frankly, we are entitled to better. If we don’t get it, then we really don’t need them.
good video – lol “yanni?”
Is this even a serious question? The “Fourth Estate” has totally dropped the ball. The Judith Miller case is just the tip of the iceberg. Basically she served as a WhiteHouse mole at the New York Times.
And that’s the LIBERAL media! At least they bothered to slightly re-word the White House press releases.
The CONSERVATIVE media just read the faxes from Karl Rove verbatim.
Iraq was also responsible for Pearl Harbour!
Those bastards!!!!!
The Democrat Party had no political interest in opposing the war, so many of the media liberals were silent on that issue. They became more hostile the same time the Democrats did, around late 2003 or so, once all the Democrat contenders decided that they needed to copy Howard Dean’s anti-war stance.
No, no, no. The liberal media had conditioned everyone into the idea that everything is safe, let the government take care of you. Except for stupid Bush. Patriotism is a meaningless anachronism.
Suddenly, 9/11 hit. The public took a 180 turn from all the above. In order to regain their credibility, they had to wave the flag, back the president and talk about how unsafe the world was. Even the Clintons.
Then the liberal media gradually started shepherding the American public back toward the views expressed in the first paragraph. It has been hard, with the Muslims still saying and doing nasty things. But that’s where the celebrity news came in. The public needed to be distracted from the dangerous world situation with something that was personally harmless. Then the polls said it was safe to hate Bush again.
As for patriotism … that couldn’t be attacked directly during a war. No, come up with a global crisis that requires an international control of America. Voila! The solar system warming! Let’s call it filthy capitalist warming! So the media and the schools have been agonizing every warm day and forgetting about the cold days. Joseph Goebbels who said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. Especially if it is congruent with some truth. With the public sold, the politicians now have to follow.
#22: The Democrat Party? Is that like the Republic Party? What country do those exist in?
13…there are few comparisons between WWII and today that hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. First, the antagonists were sovereign nations, who attacked with standing armies (navies). That alone makes the rest uncomparable. So drop the Fox talking points and find a real argument. There are some, but that’s not one of them.
IMO the thing that screwed up the press and everyone else was the president’s claim that if you weren’t with him, you were a traitor. Fox was emerging as a power, naturally they ran with those words, and everybody cowed. Seriously…if you challenged Bush in 2002 you were toast.
#18, doug,
As usual, you make some more very good points.
As for the local news, much of that was reported on by locals and stringers. There was very little digging for behind the scenes with JB Ramsey, T. Schiavo, the runaway bride, and the other tripe. Some did get a good tan on Aruba though. Most of the crap was just a constant rehash of the same crap over and over. The number of times they repeated the same 4 second shot of Terry Schiavo moving her head made me turn off the TV. That is what got the viewers attention though, which, to some editor, made it NEWS worth watching.
Also good points from several others including #23, #25, and #26.
#11 – of course we all voted them in. Consciously or subconsciously we all realized that 300 million Americans committing suicide would be better than having Kerry running the place.
Today’s media doesn’t have time for wars and nonsense. They’re busy full time with daily Anna-Nicole Smith updates.
28, show me an Anna-Nicole Smith newer than, say, 7 days old. yeah, hot air i thought so
13,
The US did not care about the Jews in WW2 AT ALL! Don’t try and re-write it. In fact, NO ONE cared about them except for the small groups of resistance fighters in Europe. Hell, Jews themselves didn’t care about Jews as their membership in the Judenrat prove.
And the US’s involvement in WW2 was way later. Good job showing up though.
#29 – they just announced the DNA results this week.
(There was actually an error on the DNA – the real father of her baby was her son.)
# 15: “I have a difficult time blaming the media.”
I’m not. I simply blame them. BTW: This DOES include most of the Western-European media as well.
I remember times when newspapers and TV news were prepared by professionals who at least TRIED to be better informed than the average reader. That implied taking the risk of not being “mainstream”.
Of course, these professionals were not “…inclined to believe the government wouldn’t lie to them”, especially, it those lies were so blatant.
Now, managed by semi-illiterate bean counters (could you imagine Murdoch reading a book?) this tradition has been completely abandonded. Fast talking & writing, not offending a supposed “general opinion” is what you get.
You get what you deserve. A stupid people will get an equally stupid government in combination with equally stupid media. This is a downward spiral with the media acting as an accelerator.
There you go. You end up in Afghanistan, leaving a mess, although even Alexander the Great failed here, not to forget the Brits and the Russians. You end up in Iraq, making things worse than ever, not only for the people there.
Of course, the incompentence of the media is not restricted to politics. Look at the global warming debate. Here you can watch idiots in the media at work, too
It simply is a waste of time now to read newspapers or to watch TV news, except if you have a professional interest in the avarage moron’s perception of the world for today.