Kurtz: News Media Give Overlooked Memo on Iraq Second Glance

[maddezmom]

News Media Give Overlooked Memo on Iraq Second Glance

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 16, 2005; Page C01

For many liberals already frustrated with the media's coverage of President Bush, it has become a rallying cry over the past six weeks: What about the Downing Street memo?

Their anger, amplified by left-wing advocacy groups, columnists, bloggers and some Democrats in Congress, has gradually forced the mainstream media to take a second look at a document that received spotty coverage after it was reported May 1 by London's Sunday Times.

Journalists offered various explanations for the scant attention paid to the July 2002 British memo, which, in recounting a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top aides, said that the Bush administration had "fixed" the intelligence on Iraq and that war was inevitable. They said the memo was old, that the U.S. mobilization for war was widely reported at the time, that there was an initial distrust of a British press report. Some maintained that the memo didn't prove anything.

But Peter Hart of the liberal group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which sent out several "action alerts" urging members to contact news organizations, said, "Any story that reminds readers that the political and journalistic establishments spectacularly failed on Iraq is a difficult story for the media to report." Now, he said, in conjunction with groups such as MoveOn.org, "activists have pushed this into the media, much to the chagrin of reporters, who have no love for getting e-mails constantly telling them to do the story."

~snip~
more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/15/AR2005061502571.html

[babylonsister]

1. I hope Kurtz includes himself as part of the

problem with lazy journalists. :eyes:

[CatWoman]

2. I have to agree with Randi Rhodes

it's not "laziness".

They are a bunch of filthy liars. Liars who go along with this administration's efforts to bury the news.

Fucking liars. All of them.

[LyleNews]

7. Kurtz Won't--If he had to do actual Journalism,

he'd be lost. All he does is re-cycle OutHouse Press Releases and feed on the line Rove dispenses every morning. He had his chance to stand up this weekend when the discussion went to the DSM, and scratched his ear and sniffed his butt to see what way the wind at CNN was blowing. Katrina Vandehuvel(sp?) , the editor at the Nation put it as clear as she could to him and he still only scratched fleas until the commercial break.

[RamboLiberal]

3. Note Timmy Russert - who flat out let Mehlman Lie

Some newspaper editors said they were stymied by the Associated Press's lack of coverage of the memo. Deborah Seward, AP's international editor, said in a statement, "There is no question AP dropped the ball in not picking up on the Downing Street memo sooner."

The network newscasts ignored the memo until the Blair visit, and cable news channels carried only occasional reports or discussions. George Stephanopoulos asked Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) about the memo May 15 on ABC's "This Week," and Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, raised it with Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman on "Meet the Press" Sunday.

"This was an issue that was widely debated in the presidential campaign of 2004, whether the intelligence was fixed or embellished," Russert said. "But this was new information to me." Asked about the slow response by NBC and other news outlets, he said, "One thing I've learned is when you see something from the British press, you have to vet it."

No Timmy, you have to vet whatever comes out of Mehlman and other Bushie Repuke's mouths. Timmy, you were not pit bull that day, you were a yipping poodle.

[katty]

5. Timmy is a full blown media whore - Kurtz is an ass kissing

loser.

[KoKo]

4. Bypassing Howie and his Whore's those of us on the "Internets" have done

one "Bang Up Job" managing to bypass the "Mainstream Media" and getting "Underground Hearings" on Bush Administration Crimes HEARD in a little used..tiny room underneath the US CAPITOL...where a small group of US House PATRITOTS showed up to REVEAL THE TRUTH!

And ...they are SO AFRAID!!!!!!!!! Amazing how the are "SO AFRAID!"

[MasonJar]

6. The Knight Ridder news organization had the news out; these

lazies could have found it there.

[salin]

8. Mistakes and irony

1) Not just one Memo - haven't you read them Howie? By the time you got around to penning this more have come out in the press.

2) Mentioning the "fixing" issue - but not the "find the legal justification" issue? Which is at the heart of what happened here - lying to congress - to the UN both to get the first resolution and then to suddenly force the pulling of the inspectors because it was "going too slow" when it was (apparently - by what is stated in these memos) that there were no WMDs in order to start the invasion.

then there is the irony....

howie asserts - we have learned to vet news from the UK. Er... the UK was the outlet which first started pushing the intel at a frenzied pace before the IWR resolution (it was pre midterms so bushco wanted to keep hands clean- but shift public sentiment such that the war vote would have an impact upon the midterms - so it was Blair and the brit news that kicked things off with several "scary memos"). There from GB first kicked off two "sexed up" memos - one had info lifted from a Masters Thesis that detailed Saddam's mobilization ... but all the data was from before the 1991 invasion... then the other was the one that included references to Niger "nuke" info and the words that an attack (that could reach us?) could be launched in 45 minutes....

So howie was it that stuff that the post and others ate up and served us, the public, that taught you the need to vet info coming from the UK? Ironic.