Farewell Ombud Column Chides U.S. Print Media Over Iraq

[Hissyspit]

Apologies if this has been posted already, but I couldn't find it.

I particularly like these two paragraphs, but overall he is clearly too apologetic/dismissive concerning WHY these things occurred, falling into the analytical patterns of those he is criticizing. Mr. Getler, it is WORSE than you think:

Iraq, he observed, "has proved impossible for me, along with many readers, to put aside and move away from. I keep coming back to it, in part, because readers keep coming back to it but also because I cannot think of a story in the past 40 years that offers more warning signs for journalism and for the role of the press in our democracy. And it's not just the press for whom Iraq should loom large. It is also Congress, the Cabinet, the civil service, the intelligence community and the military leadership.

"There is no bigger story than war. And a war whose major premise -- the threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction -- turned out to be unsupported is an even bigger story. That the administration presented this threat to the public with such a strong, yet false, sense of certainty -- including the imagery of mushroom clouds -- is an even more important lesson for all of us about big but not well-examined decisions. ...

HERE is link to his original column, and HERE is link to E&P coverage of it.


Getler, in Farewell Ombud Column, Hits 'Wash Post' on Pre-war Iraq Coverage

By E&P Staff
Published: October 10, 2005 4:15 PM ET

NEW YORK In his final column for The Washington Post on Sunday, with his five-year tenure as ombudsman up, Michael Getler took the opportunity to once again criticize the paper, and some others, for not being skeptical enough about Bush administration claims in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Getler will soon serve as ombudsman at the Public Broadcasting System.

He noted that, despite certain failures, the Post, Knight Ridder, and the Los Angeles Times have produced much fine journalism on the Iraq war, conspicuously omitting The New York Times from any mention.

- snip -

"Since the war began, many other questions have been raised about other prewar assessments. But the key question for journalists is how the process of vetting the main prewar rationale for sending Americans into a war took place, or failed to take place.

"As I've noted in previous columns, The Post contributed a fair number of stories that raised questions about the issue of weapons of mass destruction. But too many of these were placed well inside the paper. Several other stories that challenged the official wisdom and unfolded in public were either missed or played down. I have attributed this mostly to what seemed to me to be a lack of alertness on the part of editors who at the time were also undoubtedly focused on preparing for the coming war."