It is the time of apologies.
Rick Mercier of the Fredricksburg, VA paper the Free Lance-Star became the first columnist (according to the Center for American Progress) to apologize for misleading his readers about the purpose for the war with Iraq.
In his article, "Viewpoints: Elite print media failed its readers on the Iraq War," published on April 30, Mercier explained:
THE MEDIA are finished with their big blowouts on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and there's one thing they forgot to say: We're sorry.
Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage.
Sorry we were dismissive of experts who disputed White House charges against Iraq.
Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us.
Sorry we fell for Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations.
Sorry we couldn't bring ourselves to hold the administration's feet to the fire before the war, when it really mattered.
Mercier continued, explaining that "it's absurd to receive this apology from a person so low in the media hierarchy. You really ought to be getting it from the editors and reporters at the agenda-setting publications, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. It's the elite print media that failed you the most, because they're the institutions you have to rely on to keep tabs on the politicians in Washington (television news cannot do the kind of in-depth or investigative reporting that print media can do--when they're doing their job properly)."
Mercier also explained that it is not only the government who needs to be investigated but individual newspapers need to do the same.
From the horrendously distorted coverage of Times reporter Judith Miller (her sins in many ways were far worse than those of plagiarist/fabricator Jayson Blair) to the bewildering (and biased?) news judgment of the Post's editors, journalists at America's most influential publications helped ensure that a majority of you would be misinformed about Iraq and the nature of the threat it posed to you.
Why did our major newspapers misinform us? Mercier names a study done by the University of Maryland's Center for International Security Studies and The New York Review of Books, both of which came to the conclussion that US journalists relied too much on "the incumbent administration's perspective" (Maryland Center for ISS) or, as Michael Massing believed, were "sympathetic to the administration."
"Those with dissenting views-- and there were more than a few," Massing explained in his report in The New York Review of Books, "were shut out."
Mercier quotes Massing's findings:
[T]here was vigorous debate inside intelligence circles about the veracity of many of the defectors' claims, but not much of this reached readers. Instead, the print media were repeatedly duped by defectors on the Pentagon's payroll who were busily slipping credulous reporters the same disinformation they were peddling to the administration.
Knight Ridder journalists Jonathan Landay and Tish Wells reported earlier this month that the main Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, fed the Times, the Post, The Associated Press (the primary source of world and national news for this newspaper), and other print media numerous unsubstantiated allegations about the Iraqi regime that resulted in over 100 articles worldwide.
Those articles, the Knight Ridder correspondents found, made assertions that still have not been substantiated but that helped build the administration's case for invasion. They included claims that Iraq had mobile biological weapons facilities; that it had Scud missiles loaded with poison that were ready to strike Israel; that Saddam was aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons; and that he had collaborated with al-Qaida.
Mercier concludes his well-written viewpoint explaining simply that we were all taken for a ride, inlcuding the majority of the press. In the media's defense, he acknowledged that it is hard to ask questions "amid war hysteria" because "uberpatriots" will make it hard for you to not tow the line. "I can attest from personal experience," Mercier wrote, "that some may even clamor for your head."
He also acknowledged that there were many journalists who did ask the tough questions.
His criticism of the other journalists however was quite strident, for good reason, of course. Mercier writes of them that they "acted as little more than cogs in the White House propoganda machine."
Continuing on with his criticism, he concluded:
But even a cub reporter should know that if the government tells her the sky is blue, it's her job to check whether it might not be red or gray or black. And skepticism must be exercised most strongly when the matter at hand is whether the nation will go to war.
By neglecting to fully employ their critical-thinking faculties, Miller and many of her colleagues in the elite print media not only failed their readers during the countdown to the Iraq invasion, they failed our democracy.
And there's no excusing that failure. The only thing that can be said is, Sorry.
Rick Mercier may be a small city journalist but this apology and criticism of his peers demands respect. It is a show of courage in a time when courage is most needed.
