Bill Moyers Rips the media on Iraq War
by Jeff Davis
According to a prominent commentary website, Editor and Publisher, “The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called Buying the War, which marks the return of Bill Moyers Journal. E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week. While much of the evidence of the media’s role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.”
A multitude of simple questions that were being asked by the anti-war movement BEFORE THE WAR were not being asked by the mainstream media. If the arms inspectors said they had ready access to all of Iraq and could not find any WMDs why did Bush think WMDs were there? Why weren’t the arms inspectors given several more months to search since Saddam was still allowing them access? Why was it largely hidden from the American public that the CIA was feeding “tips” to the weapons inspectors on where to search and that none of the tips panned out? Why did Bush try to pass off two weather balloon trucks as mobile weapons labs? The European media exposed that story before the war. Why did Bush claim that annodized aluminum tubes bought by Iraq were part of a nuclear program even though nuclear experts knew that annodizing the tubes ruins them for nuclear work? Why did Bush say the exact opposite of what Ambassador Joe Wilson reported about Iraq and Nigerian uranium? (more…)