The Role of the New York Times in the Selling of the Iraq War


Do you think former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is a scoundrel for fabricating information and misleading readers? Consider what current Times reporter Judith Miller has done to assist the Bush Administration in misleading Congress and the American public in the selling of the Iraq War. At least Blair's lies did not contribute to death and destruction for thousands of people. Yet the New York Times allows Miller to excuse her failures. This blog entry provides several links to articles critical of Miller's war coverage.

Do you think former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is a scoundrel for fabricating information and misleading readers? Consider what current Times reporter Judith Miller has done to assist the Bush Administration in misleading Congress and the American public in the selling of the Iraq War. At least Blair's lies did not contribute to death and destruction for thousands of people. Yet the New York Times allows Miller to excuse her failures.

According to an article published in mid-February in Editor & Publisher, the New York Times has taken a hypocritical stance in its criticism of the Bush Administration for "distorting the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, and in stampeding congressional and public opinion by spinning worst-case scenarios and 'inflating them drastically' -- to justify an immediate invasion last March."

William E. Jackson, Jr., former executive director of President Carter's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, said that the Times fails to acknowledge its own "obvious role in gravely misleading the institutions of government and the public when hyping the WMD threat."

The article, currently available through Editor & Publisher only to paid subscribers, has been re-published by MediaReform.net.

Because the New York Times is considered the most prestigious and reliable U.S. newspaper, other news organizations usually follow its lead, thus compounding the dissemination of faulty and misleading information across all U.S. media.

Jackson has written other articles criticizing the Times coverage of the war and its build-up, particularly reporting by Judith Miller. See also Jackson's June 2003 Editor & Publisher article (republished by the University of Missouri Freedom of Information Center), his September 2003 Editor & Publisher article (republished by CommonDreams.org, and his October 2003 Editor & Publisher article.

Also see: this July 2003 Slate article and this February 2004 Slate article by Jack Shafer, this February 2004 New York Review of Books article by Michael Massing, this June 2003 Nation article by Russ Baker, and this June 2003 Washington Post article by Howard Kurtz, as well as this July/August 2003 American Journalism Review article by Charles Layton, and this May/June 2003 Columbia Journalism Review article by John R. MacArthur.

Posted: Fri - March 19, 2004 at 09:24 AM          

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