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Foreign Policy and the Media
The US population was blissfully unaware of many critical foreign policy issues in the run up to 9/11. In the aftermath, the media has obviously paid more attention to international relations. But has the US media done its job since then, or did it fall in line with official views, at least until the Iraq adventure went sour?
- Now the Washington Post does a Mea Culpa - (Howard Kurtz, Aug. 2004, W. Post registration required) First it was the New York Times, now the Washington Post admits that its editors had this attitute in the run up to the Iraq war: "Look, we are going to war, why do we even worry about the contrary stuff"? So the Post editors failed miserably in one of the most critical events in recent American history. What lessons has the Post learnt? Is it really covering foreign policy a lot more critically now? Has it sufficiently questioned why the United States is fighting the Iraqi Shiites now after having marched into Baghdad to "free" them from Saddam's oppressive regime?
- Why the Media Failed Americans: Schell, Asia Times, July 2004 - "... if a bloody, expensive, catastrophic episode like the war in Iraq is necessary to remind us of the important role that the press plays in US democracy, something is gravely amiss in the way America's political system has come to function."
- Hard Times for Hard News - John Stacks, ex-managing editor at Time magazine, delivers a scathing critique of the American media. This excerpt says it all: "The dumbing down of print and broadcast news savages serious coverage of topics from politics to economics to science. In company with a political culture dependent on sound bites, photo ops, and "spin" (the ubiquitous synonym for lying), the democratic ideal of an informed electorate is dying before our eyes. " World Policy Journal, Winter 2003/2004
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