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Washington Post: Iraq coverage flawed [Didn't question Bush's WMD claims enough]
newsobserver ^ | August 12, 2004 | AP

Posted on 08/12/2004 4:18:28 AM PDT by ejdrapes

Washington Post: Iraq coverage flawed

WASHINGTON (AP) - Editors at The Washington Post acknowledge they underplayed stories questioning President Bush's claims of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In the story published Thursday in the newspaper, Post media critic Howard Kurtz writes that editors resisted stories that questioned whether Bush had evidence that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

"We did our job but we didn't do enough, and I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder," assistant managing editor Bob Woodward says in the story. "We should have warned readers we had information that the basis for this was shakier" than many believed.

Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks told Kurtz, "There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?"

Executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. said, "We were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale."

In his more-than-3,000-word story, Kurtz writes, "The result was coverage that, despite flashes of groundbreaking reporting, in hindsight looks strikingly one-sided at times."

A number of critics have faulted the American news media for not being more skeptical about the Bush administration's claims before the beginning of the war in March 2003. In the year and a half since Saddam was toppled, U.S. troops have yet to discover any weapons of mass destruction.

In a study published in March by the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, researchers wrote: "If the White House acted like a WMD story was important, ... so too did the media. If the White House ignored a story (or an angle on a story), the media were likely to as well."

In May, The New York Times criticized its own reporting on Iraq, saying it found "a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been" and acknowledging it sometimes "fell for misinformation" from exile Iraqi sources.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bushsfault; idiots; iraqwar; lazywriters; post; stupidmedia; times; wmd
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1 posted on 08/12/2004 4:18:28 AM PDT by ejdrapes
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To: ejdrapes
Yes, they're flogging themselves for not calling the president a liar, earlier and more often. You can bet the gloves will come off and they'll be down to the bone by inauguration day.

WP Login: libssuck@libssuck.com
Password: hillary

2 posted on 08/12/2004 4:25:56 AM PDT by rabidralph (A thread I'll never visit: "Topless elderly ladies scare people on the Black Sea beaches")
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To: ejdrapes

Less than a week into the war the media was already saying we were bogged down and into a quagmire. Yeah they haven't been critical enough.


Funny when you poll the American people they overwhelmingly feel the media has had a extreme anti-American bias throughout the Iraq war. But to hell with the people when there is a agenda to serve.

One thing is certain the elite media has worked hard for and most certainly deserve the irrelevance they now enjoy.


3 posted on 08/12/2004 4:28:39 AM PDT by federal
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To: ejdrapes

Where were these phonies before, during, and after Kosovo? The stupidest war ever fought by America?


4 posted on 08/12/2004 4:32:37 AM PDT by tkathy (The choice is clear. Big tent or no tent.)
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To: ejdrapes
Yeah... right.... the Washington Post wasn't "critical" enough of the White House.

These people are a pant load. Why no investigation of removal and DESTRUCTION of top secret documents by Sandy Berger. Can you imagine what would happen if Condileeza Rice or Andy Card or Karl Rove had been so "clumsy" and "absent minded".

The Free Republic and talk radio as well as Fox have essentially made the Times and Wash Post as credible as the Enquirer..... and that's the best part of the self destructive media. They like us are preaching to the choir.

As far as "influencing" anybody..... well most libs have had a generation of public schooling and can't read or pay attention for more than 30 seconds without a laugh track or tits in front of their face.

The libs are slowly devolving into 3 groups ; first a very rarified niche of court jesters (musicians and actors) and wizards and astrologers (academics without strong science background who "feel" and adjust data to suit their needs. Or academics who have failed in the private sector and are bitter, jealous and lazy). secondly the bored rich who use the jesters and wizards to amuse themselves and who didn't "earn" the money but were products of inheritance, marriage or theft, and thirdly the large group of souls too lazy, stupid or the undereducated/ indoctrinated that believe the heighth of human existence will be achieved from the nipple of the government.

5 posted on 08/12/2004 4:35:00 AM PDT by Dick Vomer (liberals suck......... but it depends on what your definition of the word "suck" is.)
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To: ejdrapes

Hey...there's a new one!

It's the Washington Post's fault!


6 posted on 08/12/2004 4:53:06 AM PDT by dawn53
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To: ejdrapes

Criminy! It's like the end of Schindler's List.

"This car. Why did I keep the car? Ten Bush-bashing stories right there... This pin. Two stories. This is gold. Two more Bush-bashing stories. At least one. I could have bashed Bush one more time... and I didn't! And I... I didn't!"


7 posted on 08/12/2004 4:53:29 AM PDT by VisualizeSmallerGovernment (Question Liberal Authority)
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To: ejdrapes

So now the media is repeating the same mistake by not questioning anything Kerry says or does.


8 posted on 08/12/2004 4:53:33 AM PDT by School of Rational Thought (Republicans - The thinking people's party)
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: ejdrapes

Ah, yes, Pravda on the Potomac is sad that it didn't protect its Stalinist buddy Saddam from mean, old president Bush.

Does the Post come with a barf bag when bought at newstands? Now there's a question needing an answer.


10 posted on 08/12/2004 5:26:57 AM PDT by sergeantdave (Gen. Custer wore an Arrowsmith shirt to his last property owner convention.)
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To: ejdrapes

The beady-eyed rats of the mainstream press are just scurrying around, licking their behinds.


11 posted on 08/12/2004 5:31:13 AM PDT by AF68
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To: ejdrapes

Just like the Post...whatever it takes to divert attention from the REAL stories...


12 posted on 08/12/2004 5:31:52 AM PDT by Magnolia (Pennies a day help keep Liberals at bay.....become a monthly donor!)
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To: rabidralph
"flogging themselves" ?

With a strand or two of embroidery thread, maybe. You can bet your rabid ass the mainstream wouldn't be naval gazing if WMDs had been found. The entire world believed Saddam had WMDs, if Bush hadn't acted, he should have been impeached.

13 posted on 08/12/2004 5:54:04 AM PDT by YaYa123 (@Pardon My Skepticism.com)
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To: School of Rational Thought
"So now the media is repeating the same mistake by not questioning anything Kerry says or does."

That's not the media's only repeat mistake. They are treating the swifties just like they treated Gennifer Flowers. It's not that the media never learns from it's mistakes...it's that they intend to protect their guy no matter what.

Not only will the media refuse to acknowledge criticism and refuse to investigate the charges, they will pile on their guy's attempt to malign the messenger.

14 posted on 08/12/2004 6:01:18 AM PDT by YaYa123 (@Pardon My Skepticism.com)
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To: YaYa123

WMD? They are walking among us everyday!


15 posted on 08/12/2004 6:01:48 AM PDT by nofatum
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To: sergeantdave
Does the Post come with a barf bag when bought at newstands? Now there's a question needing an answer.

What a great idea for a Freep by the DC Chapter!!!

Anybody got a Ping List for them??

16 posted on 08/12/2004 6:13:22 AM PDT by An.American.Expatriate (A vote for JF'nK is a vote for Peace in our Time!)
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To: ejdrapes
In the year and a half since Saddam was toppled, U.S. troops have yet to discover any weapons of mass destruction.

Maybe technically true, but POLISH troops sure did find some shells with sarin gas, didn't they?

17 posted on 08/12/2004 6:41:33 AM PDT by stremba
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To: ejdrapes
WP didn't spend enough time investigating and exposing the readily verifiable, anti-American lies by Bin Laden in his 1998 jihad statement - still recruiting and inspiring terrorist wannabes today, or investigating and exposing the hatred sold as 'religion' in too many mosques across the nation, or investigating and exposing the three decades of atrocities committed by Saddam and fellow Baathists, or investigating and exposing their own betrayal of our own noble Vietnam Veterans, or investigating and exposing the consequences of the misreporting then, that inflamed the homefront - millions dead because of a brutal communist regime that spread, investigating and exposing the true cruel history and nature of the 'jihadist' terrorists our honorable troops bravely face and remove today.

Instead, our free press, WP, investigates and exposes allies who worship Christ, and love their neighbors, and/or risk their lives to expose this cruel enemy and defend our freedom.

WP, and their mainstream press peers, continue to appease and embolden and serve a very cruel enemy that cares nothing about their freedom, rights, or lives.

18 posted on 08/12/2004 7:06:51 AM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl ("It is high time to call what is good, good..Our people were saved and can now hope.."- Iraqi bishop)
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To: ejdrapes

Have these bastards challenged repeated Democratic claims of widespread voter fraud and disenfranchisement in Florida 2000? Did they challenge Clinton when HE made claims about Saddam's threat? No way, Jose.


19 posted on 08/12/2004 7:28:53 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: tkathy

Kosovo STILL isn't been resolved, and these folks criticize Bush for having "no plan" for post war Iraq (there WAS a plan that filled thirteen thick binders, by the way). But what was Clinton's master plan for Kosovo? There was NONE WHATSOEVER.


20 posted on 08/12/2004 7:30:50 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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