The lead-up to the invasion of Iraq has become notorious in the
annals of American journalism. Even many reporters, editors and
commentators who fueled the drive to war in 2002 and early 2003 now
acknowledge that major media routinely tossed real journalism out the
window in favor of boosting war.
But it’s happening again.
The current media travesty is a drumbeat for the idea that the U.S.
war effort must keep going. And again, in its news coverage, the New York
Times is a bellwether for the latest media parade to the cadence of the
warfare state.
During the run-up to the invasion, news stories repeatedly told about
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction while the Times and other key media
outlets insisted that their coverage was factually reliable. Now the same
media outlets insist that their coverage is analytically
reliable.
Instead of authoritative media information about aluminum tubes and
mobile weapons labs, we’re now getting authoritative media
illumination of why a swift pullout of U.S. troops isn’t realistic or
desirable. The result is similar to what was happening four years ago -- a
huge betrayal of journalistic responsibility.
The WMD spin was in sync with official sources and other
establishment-sanctified experts, named and unnamed. The anti-pullout spin
is in sync with official sources and other
establishment-sanctified experts, named and unnamed.
During the weeks since the midterm election, the New York Times news
coverage of Iraq policy options has often been heavy-handed, with
carefully selective sourcing for prefab conclusions. Already infamous is
the Nov. 15 front-page story by Michael Gordon under the headline “Get Out
of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say.” A similar technique was at play
Dec. 1 with yet another “News Analysis,” this time by
reporter David Sanger, headlined “The Only Consensus on Iraq:
Nobody’s Leaving Right Now.”
Typically, in such reportage, the sources harmonizing with the media
outlet’s analysis are chosen from the cast of political characters who
helped drag the United States into making war on Iraq in the
first place.
What’s now going on in mainline news media is some kind of repetition
compulsion. And, while media professionals engage in yet another
round of conformist opportunism, many people will pay with their
lives.
With so many prominent American journalists navigating their stories
by the lights of big Washington stars, it’s not surprising that so much of
the news coverage looks at what happens in Iraq through the lens of the
significance for American power.
Viewing the horrors of present-day Iraq with star-spangled eyes, New
York Times reporters John Burns and Kirk Semple wrote -- in the lead
sentence of a front-page “News Analysis” on Nov. 29 -- that “American
military and political leverage in Iraq has fallen sharply.”
The second paragraph of the Baghdad-datelined article reported:
“American fortunes here are ever more dependent on feuding Iraqis who
seem, at times, almost heedless to American appeals.”
The third paragraph reported: “It is not clear that the United States
can gain new traction in Iraq...”
And so it goes -- with U.S. media obsessively focused on such
concerns as “American military and political leverage,” “American
fortunes” and whether “the United States can gain new traction in
Iraq.”
With that kind of worldview, no wonder so much news coverage is
serving nationalism instead of journalism.
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Norman Solomon’s book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep
Spinning Us to Death” is out in paperback. For information, go to
www.WarMadeEasy.com