BUYING THE WAR: Watch the Show(/online video)

[Henk op xp]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

<http://openheidoverirak.nu/forum/index.php?topic=44.msg125#msg125>


BUYING THE WAR: Watch the Show

<http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html> <-<- Klik hier (voor 
de online video)
(To) Read transcript 
<http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html> <-<- Klik hier

"
Some PBS stations are re-broadcasting "Buying the War" the week of 
August 6, 2007. Check your local listings — or click to watch the whole 
program online!

Also, explore recent trends and controversies about media coverage of 
the Iraq surge. <http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/update.html>

Four years ago on May 1, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier 
USS Lincoln wearing a flight suit and delivered a speech in front of a 
giant "Mission Accomplished" banner. He was hailed by media stars as a 
"breathtaking" example of presidential leadership in toppling Saddam 
Hussein. Despite profound questions over the failure to locate weapons 
of mass destruction and the increasing violence in Baghdad, many in the 
press confirmed the White House's claim that the war was won. MSNBC's 
Chris Matthews declared, "We're all neo-cons now;" NPR's Bob Edwards 
said, "The war in Iraq is essentially over;" and Fortune magazine's Jeff 
Birnbaum said, "It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really 
was in the broadest context."

How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence 
disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link 
between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? "What 
the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been 
cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply 
continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions 
asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny 
remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily 
explored," says Moyers. "How the administration marketed the war to the 
American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: 
How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of 
journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?"

"Buying the War" includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; 
Tim Russert of MEET THE PRESS; Bob Simon of 60 MINUTES; Walter Isaacson, 
former president of CNN; and John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren 
Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers, which was acquired by The McClatchy 
Company in 2006.

In "Buying the War" Bill Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes document 
the reporting of Walcott, Landay and Strobel, the Knight Ridder team 
that burrowed deep into the intelligence agencies to try and determine 
whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration's case for 
war. "Many of the things that were said about Iraq didn't make sense," 
says Walcott. "And that really prompts you to ask, 'Wait a minute. Is 
this true? Does everyone agree that this is true? Does anyone think this 
is not true?'"

In the run-up to war, skepticism was a rarity among journalists inside 
the Beltway. Journalist Bob Simon of 60 MINUTES, who was based in the 
Middle East, questioned the reporting he was seeing and reading. "I mean 
we knew things or suspected things that perhaps the Washington press 
corps could not suspect. For example, the absurdity of putting up a 
connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda," he tells Moyers. 
"Saddam...was a total control freak. To introduce a wild card like Al 
Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do. So I just didn't 
believe it for an instant." The program analyzes the stream of unchecked 
information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors to the 
mainstream print and broadcast press, which was then seized upon and 
amplified by an army of pundits. While almost all the claims would 
eventually prove to be false, the drumbeat of misinformation about WMDs 
went virtually unchallenged by the media. THE NEW YORK TIMES reported on 
Iraq's "worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb," but 
according to Landay, claims by the administration about the possibility 
of nuclear weapons were highly questionable. Yet, his story citing the 
"lack of hard evidence of Iraqi weapons" got little play. In fact, 
throughout the media landscape, stories challenging the official view 
were often pushed aside while the administration's claims were given 
prominence. "From August 2002 until the war was launched in March of 
2003 there were about 140 front page pieces in THE WASHINGTON POST 
making the administration's case for war," says Howard Kurtz, the POST's 
media critic. "But there was only a handful of stories that ran on the 
front page that made the opposite case. Or, if not making the opposite 
case, raised questions."

"Buying the War" examines the press coverage in the lead-up to the war 
as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy 
and asks, four years after the invasion, what's changed? "More and more 
the media become, I think, common carriers of administration statements 
and critics of the administration," says THE WASHINGTON POST's Walter 
Pincus. "We've sort of given up being independent on our own."
"
"
Read more on the Moyers Blog 
<http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/04/chat_now_with_knight_ridder_re.html> 
from reporters Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel.
"

De noodzaak naar zo´n onderzoek (over de deelname aan Irak) blijft nog 
steeds aanwezig. Naarmate er meer en meer boven tafel komt, roept de 
steun aan die oorlog (en het daaraan meedoen) zeer ernstige bedenkingen 
op, ook en met name over de rol van dit land in die illegale oorlog. 
Jouralistiek Nederland faalt nog erger dan de Amerikaanse in het boven 
water halen van de feiten en gegevens die er toe doen. Geen wonder dat 
men zich met interne zaken bezighoudt, die op zich (ex-moslim) ook al 
nergens over gaan.

Henk Elegeert

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********