NYT on the Press, The Pentagon, and the War in Iraq
The New York Times today published a remarkable story on the orchestrated use of retired military officers to push the administration’s rationale for war and, more recently, progress in Iraq.
Read “Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.”
It’s a lengthy but important read that raises questions about the shaping of news by the Pentagon and the Bush administration, the ethical judgment of the military analysts in question–many of whom described to the Times the serious misgivings about the information they received yet reported dutifully on air, and the fine line between informing and propagandizing the American public.
But the most immediate question is what will news outlets do now? How will they respond to the manipulation described by the New York Times? Will they impose greater oversight and control over their analysts? Will they seek out new, fresh voices? Will they come to realize that even military analysts have a political point of view and therefore need to be balanced the same way they do Pat Buchanan and James Carville?
The Fourth Estate’s performance on the Iraq War has been, in a word, horrendous. From unfounded and breathless pre-war reporting on Iraq’s WMD–where assertion was reported as fact–to the abdication of standards reported in the Times today, journalists (with exceptions like James Landay and Warren Strobel, then at Knight Ridder) have failed to provide the independent filter on events that is so vital to American Democracy.
