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Sunday, August 15, 2004

"Reflections" on an Ass-Kicking at WaPo 

Last Sunday we noted the Washington Post ran a self-critical analysis on the subject of their coverage of the Runup to War.

Today they ran a number of reader responses to their little Oopsie!. They gave it the headline "Pissed-Off Readers Respond."

Naw, not really. They called it

Reflections on The Post's Self-Evaluation

If we believe that a properly informed citizenry is integral to a functional democracy, we should either recognize the media's role in allowing the war to happen or accept that we do not have a functional democracy.

***

The Post's failure was not its inability to counter specific administration claims. Rather, it was its unwillingness to pull back and challenge the broader strategic, and philosophical, bases that made a war with Iraq a certainty for the Bush-Cheney administration.

***

Perhaps Mr. Downie and others have been rereading those Watergate clips too often. I don't expect newspaper reporters to alter events, just to do the job they have constitutional protection to do.

***

So the stories skeptical of weapons of mass destruction were "incremental, difficult-to-read stories." Howard Kurtz's report on The Post's prewar coverage repeatedly cited the difficulty of editing such stories.

Who said editing a newspaper was supposed to be easy?

***

I was astonished to read a quotation of The Post's executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr., saying that "the voices raising questions about the war were lonely ones."

On Feb. 15, 2003, I was one of several million people worldwide protesting the imminent invasion of Iraq. We were hundreds of thousands strong in New York City alone. While I experienced many powerful emotions that day, I can assure Mr. Downie that "loneliness" was not among them.

***

Howard Kurtz's story left me frustrated and angry. Although it contained a lot of breast-beating and mea culpas, it didn't answer the question: "Now what?"

I have two sons approaching draft age. The role of journalists is very much to ensure that we do not needlessly sacrifice the lives of our sons and daughters -- now and in the future.

Had the Post been willing to do that, I would feel much less worried about my sons' future.
These are just a few excerpts from a few of the letters. Go read the whole thing. It ain't just us old lefties who are just as pissed about the media as we are about the MalAdministration.

corrente SBL - New Location
~ Since April 2010 ~

corrente.blogspot.com
~ Since 2003 ~

The Washington Chestnut
~ current ~



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