Here is more evidence/admissions that the so called liberal media
hoodwinked the country into war while knowing full well that the casus
beli they put forward was a hoax.
Of course they in effect say that it was all a misunderstanding but in
organizations like the Washington Post where there is tradition and
experience that spans well over a century colossal failures like this
do not just go undetected for so long. The WMD story ran unopposed in
the press because the "press" wanted it to be so, because they had
decided for whatever reason to collude with the Bushies tol sell the
war to the public. That's why, just like the New York Times did when
they fessed up to also having embelished the WMD story, the Washington
Post is holding no one responsible for such a massive failure of
public trust simply because it was not a failure, it was their policy.


By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 12, 2004; Page A01

Days before the Iraq war began, veteran Washington Post reporter
Walter Pincus put together a story questioning whether the Bush
administration had proof that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of
mass destruction.

But he ran into resistance from the paper's editors, and his piece ran
only after assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, who was researching
a book about the drive toward war, "helped sell the story," Pincus
recalled. "Without him, it would have had a tough time getting into
the paper." Even so, the article was relegated to Page A17.

Here is more evidence/admissions that the so called liberal media
hoodwinked the country into war while knowing full well that the casus
beli they put forward was a hoax.
Of course they in effect say that it was all a misunderstanding but in
organizations like the Washington Post where there is tradition and
experience that spans well over a century colossal failures like this
do not just go undetected for so long. The WMD story ran unopposed in
the press because the "press" wanted it to be so, because they had
decided for whatever reason to collude with the Bushies tol sell the
war to the public. That's why, just like the New York Times did when
they fessed up to also having embelished the WMD story, the Washington
Post is holding no one responsible for such a massive failure of
public trust simply because it was not a failure, it was their policy.


By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 12, 2004; Page A01

Days before the Iraq war began, veteran Washington Post reporter
Walter Pincus put together a story questioning whether the Bush
administration had proof that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of
mass destruction.

But he ran into resistance from the paper's editors, and his piece ran
only after assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, who was researching
a book about the drive toward war, "helped sell the story," Pincus
recalled. "Without him, it would have had a tough time getting into
the paper." Even so, the article was relegated to Page A17.
"We did our job but we didn't do enough, and I blame myself mightily
for not pushing harder," Woodward said in an interview. "We should
have warned readers we had information that the basis for this was
shakier" than widely believed. "Those are exactly the kind of
statements that should be published on the front page."

As violence continues in postwar Iraq and U.S. forces have yet to
discover any WMDs, some critics say the media, including The
Washington Post, failed the country by not reporting more skeptically
on President Bush's contentions during the run-up to war.

An examination of the paper's coverage, and interviews with more than
a dozen of the editors and reporters involved, shows that The Post
published a number of pieces challenging the White House, but rarely
on the front page. Some reporters who were lobbying for greater
prominence for stories that questioned the administration's evidence
complained to senior editors who, in the view of those reporters, were
unenthusiastic about such pieces. The result was coverage that,
despite flashes of groundbreaking reporting, in hindsight looks
strikingly one-sided at times.

"The paper was not front-paging stuff," said Pentagon correspondent
Thomas Ricks. "Administration assertions were on the front page.
Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24
on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to
war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?"
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58127-2004Aug11.html

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