Incredible article on the media's performance during the runup to war

edit: Please take time to read the whole article, if you can--it's a great summary of the problems with the early coverage of the war.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16922

NOW THEY TELL US
by Michael Massing

Miller quoted a variety of officials and former inspectors about the nearly insurmountable obstacles inspectors would face if they returned to Iraq. David Kay, identified as "a former inspector who led the initial nuclear inspections in Iraq in the early 1990's," was quoted as saying of the inspectors that "their task is damn near a mission impossible." Miller also cited Khidhir Hamza, the defector she had written about in 1998. Identified as having "led part of Iraq's nuclear bomb program until he defected in 1994," he was quoted as estimating that "Iraq was now at the 'pilot plant' stage of nuclear production and within two to three years of mass producing centrifuges to enrich uranium for a bomb." Iraq, he added, "now excelled" in hiding nuclear and other unconventional weapons programs.

In fact, Hamza never produced any convincing sources for these statements. Contrary to Miller's description, he had resigned from Iraq's nuclear program in 1990 and had no firsthand knowledge of it after the Gulf War. After coming to the United States, he had gone to work for David Albright's Institute for Science and International Security, but by 1999 his claims about Iraq's weapons programs had become so inflated that Albright felt he could no longer work with him, and Hamza left the institute. The following year he came out with a book, Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda (written with Jeff Stein), that, Albright says, "made many ridiculous claims." In light of this, he adds, he was surprised to see that Judith Miller continued to rely on Hamza. "Judy should have known about this," Albright says. "This is her area."

<snip>

In short, the IAEA, after weeks of intensive inspections, had found no sign whatever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program. Given the importance the administration had attached to this matter, this would have seemed news of the utmost significance. Yet it was largely ignored. The Times, which had so prominently displayed its initial story about the aluminum tubes, buried its main article about ElBaradei's statement on page A10. (The paper did briefly mention ElBaradei's conclusion about the tubes in a front-page story that focused mainly on Iraq's lack of cooperation with the inspectors.) One of the few papers to give his statement significant treatment was The Washington Post. Following up on his earlier article on the tubes, Joby Warrick incorporated the IAEA findings into a detailed analysis of the claims and counterclaims surrounding the tubes. The article cited weapons inspectors, scientists, and other experts, all of whom cast strong doubt on the administration's arguments.

<snip>

The contrast between the press's feistiness since the end of the war and its meekness before it highlights one of the most entrenched and disturbing features of American journalism: its pack mentality. Editors and reporters don't like to diverge too sharply from what everyone else is writing. When a president is popular and a consensus prevails, journalists shrink from challenging him. Even now, papers like the Times and the Post seem loath to give prominent play to stories that make the administration look too bad. Thus, stories about the increasing numbers of dead and wounded in Iraq —both American and Iraqi—are usually consigned to page 10 or 12, where they won't cause readers too much discomfort.

they were all on the war bandwagon, as I recall. They couldn't wait to get the big adventure started. They were going to be embedded. They were nothing but cheerleaders. They refused to give coverage to those that were against the war. And they always seemed to minimize the numbers at the protests, as I recall. The media cannot escape a great deal of responsibility for the young men and women that have lost their lives in Iraq. They are no better than the yellow journalism of W Randolph Hearst at the turn of the last century.

The article goes through the entire runup, and while long, is something I would consider essential reading for anyone looking to understand the media's behavior during the runup to war.