Eleven Years On: How ‘The Washington Post’ Helped Give Us the Iraq War

[kpete]

Eleven Years On: How ‘The Washington Post’ Helped Give Us the Iraq War
Greg Mitchell on March 12, 2014 - 1:50 PM ET


By the Post’s own admission, in the months before the war, it ran more than 140 stories on its front page promoting the war, while contrary information “got lost,” as one Post staffer told Kurtz. So allow me to pursue a few points (see my book for much more on media misconduct in war coverage). First, two quotes (beyond the Woodward gem) from Post staffers that speak for themselves:

• “There was an attitude among editors: Look, we’re going to war, why do we even worry about all the contrary stuff?” —Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks.

• “We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power.“ —Reporter Karen DeYoung.

“Bob Woodward, for his part, said it was risky for journalists to write anything that might look silly if weapons were ultimately found in Iraq.”

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MUCH MORE:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/178819/eleven-years-how-washington-post-helped-give-us-iraq-war#

[rhett o rick]

1. We dont have freedom of the press. Until we can establish such, we wont have Democracy. nm

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. Thanks for this. The media manipulates our country's thoughts by repeating

the same thing over and over to the exclusion of other things.

[jsr]

3. It is well qualified to be Jeff Bezos's own personal mouthpiece

[Octafish]

4. Integrity.

Look it up, WaPo.

[Jefferson23]

5. After Watergate, Woodward wrote shit. n/t

[Damansarajaya]

6. Exactly right. Remember that puff piece on Bush?

What was it called? "President Rambo" "His pro-genitive organ is bigger than Al Qaeda's" or "GW = Captain America" or something like that.