DU Researchers: May I get your help on something?

[WilliamPitt]

I am looking for comments by journalists about how journalism has catastrophically failed on the Iraq issue. There have been several. If any of you have links to these comments, I would be grateful if you could post them here. Thanks!

[myrna minx]

1. Dan Rather and the BBC...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/05_may/16/dan_rather.shtml

Veteran CBS News Anchor Dan Rather speaks out on BBC Newsnight tonight



The veteran CBS News anchor and reporter Dan Rather has for the first time attacked the climate of patriotism in the United States, saying it's stopping journalists asking tough questions. In an exclusive interview with BBC TWO's Newsnight tonight (Thursday 16 May), he admits he has held back from taking the Bush administration to task over the so-called war on terror.



Rather says: "It is an obscene comparison - you know I am not sure I like it - but you know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tyres around people's necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tyre of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions, and to continue to bore in on the tough questions so often. And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism."



Rather admits self-censorship: "What we are talking about here - whether one wants to recognise it or not, or call it by its proper name or not - is a form of self-censorship. It starts with a feeling of patriotism within oneself. It carries through with a certain knowledge that the country as a whole - and for all the right reasons - felt and continues to feel this surge of patriotism within themselves. And one finds oneself saying: 'I know the right question, but you know what? This is not exactly the right time to ask it'."

[mrfrapp]

9. Another link

Another link with streaming video (real media) to the actual interview.

[Poiuyt]

2. Here's a start, Will

Journalists Criticize Media Coverage of Iraq
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/qtr1_2003/0304-104.html

Journalists Find Many Ways to Kill Truth in Iraq
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-04.htm

The failure of US journalism
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/75755A53-31A3-490E-99FC-8070C73B0305.htm

“We Failed the American Public”
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1665

[myrna minx]

3. Judith Miller @ NYT

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/27/times/index_np.html

Not fit to print
How Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraq war lobby used New York Times reporter Judith Miller to make the case for invasion.

[Mandate My Ass]

4. A few here

Chris Hedges on 'Distorted' War Coverage

By Barbara Bedway

Published: April 02, 2003

For Chris Hedges, the veteran journalist who has covered over a dozen conflicts around the globe, it's clear that the U.S. military's use of embedded reporters in Iraq has made the war easier to see and harder to understand. Yes, "print is doing a better job than TV," he observes. "The broadcast media display all these retired generals and charts and graphs, it looks like a giant game of Risk . I find it nauseating." But even the print embeds have little choice but to "look at Iraq totally through the eyes of the U.S. military," he points out. "That's a very distorted and self-serving view."

To Hedges, who is fluent in Arabic, this instantaneous "slice of war" reporting is bereft of context. Reporters have a difficult time interviewing Iraqi civilians, and many don't even try, he says. "We don't know what the Iraqis think." The reporters are "talking about a country and culture they know nothing about."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1853701

Columnist Criticizes Iraq Coverage

By Dave Astor

Published: March 24, 2003

NEW YORK With most column commentary ranging from the right to liberal, what does a rare left voice in mainstream syndication have to say now that the U.S. is at war with Iraq?

For one thing, Creators Syndicate writer Norman Solomon is dismayed with the cheerleading approach many U.S. newspapers are taking in the initial days of war. And the media columnist said the practice of "embedding" journalists with U.S. soldiers is partly to blame.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1847935

J-School Students Critique Iraq Coverage

Students praised those national newspapers that printed articles regarding the effects of a possible war on not only the American people but also the citizens of Middle Eastern countries. However, students wanted still more coverage of these issues, and agreed with those who accuse journalists of having a short memory.

A Los Angeles Times reader "was given very little historical perspective and was hardly ever reminded of the ugly past," Aida Aidakyeva wrote, adding that the short memory of editors and reporters "allowed many to forget how the United States was friends with Hussein and how it shared its biological and chemical weapons programs."

Students studying nine large regional dailies complained about the missing historical perspective as well. They noted that some newspapers relied too heavily on wire services and stories that simply outlined Washington policy regarding the possible war.

For example, Rae Ann Wilson's review of the Chicago Tribune left her with unanswered questions: "Why are we going to war? Do we want oil or to gain more power in the Middle East? Is Bush just finishing off a family project with Powell and if so, is he making a mistake? What does the rest of the world really think" Wilson said that answers to these questions "will not be found at a press briefing, that much is for sure."


http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1839685





US media revisit own failures on Iraq conflict
Agence France Presse

NEW YORK, (AFP) - While President George W. Bush (news - web sites) takes heat from the media over the Iraq (news - web sites) conflict, US journalists have started an introspection of their coverage of the administration's pre-war arguments for ousting Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

"This has been the most shameful era of American media and for American democracy," argued Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer during a March conference on the war and the media at Berkeley University in California.

The media failed to question the links being made between Saddam's regime and the September 11, 2001, attacks and the "war on terror," Scheer said.

http://www.worldrevolution.org/article/1301

[mzteris]

5. Journalists on Iraq

The truth tramplers: Media war spin on trial
By Antony Loewenstein
October 1, 2003: Sydney Morning Herald
http://irishantiwar.org/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0001Vp&topic_id=1&topic=Irish%20Anti-War

Media Watchdogs Caught Napping
By Leander Kahney
http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2003_35/

Embedded: Prostituting journalism and producing bastardized news
By Ameen Izzadeen
http://www.dailymirror.lk/inside/worldw/030328.html

Feeding the hate machine: Robert Fisk examines links between journalism, propaganda and the war on terror
By Nelly Bassily
Published: Wednesday, November 20, 2002
http://www.theconcordian.com/news/2002/11/20/News/Feeding.The.Hate.Machine.Robert.Fisk.Examines.Links.Between.Journalism.Propagand-328586.shtml

Bottom-Line Pressures Now Hurting Coverage, Say Journalists Press Going Too Easy on Bush
Released: May 23, 2004
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=214
Note: nothing directly about Iraq, but much on the state of journalism. Some good "quotes" - but they are anonymous in this report.

[MallRat]

6. And when you're done with this project, Will...

...you can start putting together a compendium of comments by journalists about how journalism has catastrophically failed on coverage of the 2004 Presidential election.

This has got to be one of the most insubstantial Presidential races I can ever remember. The media knows it, too, but they can't stop chasing the nice, shiny objects. Then they criticize Kerry for not effectively getting his message out.

I expect the mea culpa editorials to roll out sometime around January-February. They'll hold a couple of panel discussions at Columbia University, apologize profusely with much hand-wringing, and then go back to work.

:eyes:

-MR

[TrogL]

7. CBC radio was talking about it this morning

www.cbc.ca

[JHB]

8. Places to look

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/2/mooney-war.asp
http://www.nybooks.com/authors/71

Reference to other reports, which will help narrow searches:

From
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/goldsborough/20040419-9999-mz1e19golds.html

How did we use that freedom in the period leading up to war in Iraq?

Three press reports show we made poor use of it.

A year ago, as war was about to begin, Editor & Publisher, the professional weekly, did an analysis showing that among the top 50 daily newspapers, not one editorial page was "strongly anti-war." In other words, the nation's watchdogs failed to provide context or balance to the war-whooping taking place on talk radio and cable television.

This month, the Columbia Journalism Review provides an analysis of editorial pages on six of the most influential U.S. newspapers. It concludes that not one of them "held the Bush administration to an adequate standard of proof when it came to launching not just a war, but a pre-emptive war opposed by most of the world."

The six newspapers examined are: The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Though most of these dailies have historical memories stretching beyond the Vietnam War, not one of them suggested that, in Iraq, we risked walking into another quagmire.

The third press analysis deals with news stories, not editorials. The New York Review of Books, in three separate editions, published an exchange between press analyst Michael Massing and reporters and editors at The New York Times and Washington Post. This exchange involved Massing's charge that Post and Times reporters and editors were too complaisant toward the Bush administration, failing to research or question Bush allegations that proved to be false.

[AlCzervik]

10. Here is one about Christian Amanpour's comments

about the self muzzeling media and Fox "News."
http://www.progressive.org/webex03/wx091703.html