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2 articles from 2007

25 April 2007 | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Jessica Lynch, who was depicted in the press and on a U.S. TV docudrama as a female Rambo during the early days of the Iraq war, told a Congressional hearing Tuesday that much of what was reported about her never occurred. She did not, however, fault the news media for the fabrication but suggested instead that the U.S. Army had contrived the account to promote its mission in Iraq. "The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales," she told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Likewise, the brother of former NFL star Pat Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, also accused the Army of covering up the fact that his brother had been killed by friendly fire and had created an elaborate scenario depicting him as a hero who died in the face of a fierce enemy attack. Kevin Tillman, who was himself riding in a convoy behind his brother at the time of the incident, told the panel that he believes the Army used his brother to counter bad publicity about Abu Ghraib that was released at about the same time. "It shifted the focus from the grotesque torture at Abu Ghraib and a downward spiral of an illegal act of aggression to a great American who died a hero's death." Tillman, too, did not criticize the news media for its failure to question the military's account. The testimony of Lynch and Tillman came as PBS prepared to broadcast what some critics have called a "devastating" Bill Moyers Journal tonight (Wednesday) charging that following the 9/11 attacks the U.S. news media abandoned their traditional role of government overseer and became an agent of American policy instead.

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20 April 2007 | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

The return of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS next Wednesday will feature a deadly appraisal of the news media's performance in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Editor & Publisher, which received a preview DVD of the broadcast, said that Moyers concludes that "the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses." In only rare instances did the media display enterprising journalism in appraising the assertions by the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein posed a danger to the U.S., Moyers indicates. Former CNN head Walter Isaacson credits reporters for Knight Ridder with busily calling the military and the CIA "and finding out that the intelligence is not very good." Isaacson adds: "We should've all been doing that." He blames a "patriotism police" that arose after the 9/11 events for CNN's lack of aggressive reporting on Iraq. And former CBS anchor Dan Rather admits, "I don't think there is any excuse for my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war. ... We didn't dig enough. And we shouldn't have been fooled in this way."

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2 articles from 2007