McClellan's Mirror

Washington Press Corps Not Thrilled With New Book

By Brian Mann, Guest Writer, 6-02-08

Scott McClellan’s book about his years as a press flak for President George Bush reveals some juicy tidbits about his former boss and the successful effort to foist pre-war “political propaganda”—McClellan’s words—on the American people. 

But most of that stuff is old news.  The scarier revelations involve the people on the other side of his podium: the reporters and editors who cover Washington and who helped to carry the White House message.

In “What Happened,” McClellan holds up a mirror to our journalistic elite, questioning their diligence and professionalism prior to the Iraq War. 

“If anything,” he writes, “the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.”

Before McClellan was pushed out as White House press secretary, he was notoriously fond of ambiguity and obfuscation.  But his book leaves no room for misunderstandings.  “In this case,” he argues, “the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

Not surprisingly, many of the nation’s top-tier reporters and news anchors bristled at the accusations.  When Vice President Dick Cheney spoke dismissively of the McClellan’s book, at an appearance before the National Press Club, he drew applause and laughter.

“I think the questions were asked,” insisted ABC’s Charles Gibson.  “I can remember getting in trouble with administration officials for asking questions they didn’t feel comfortable with.”

“When people say White House reporters weren’t asking the tough questions, that’s false,” echoed Julie Mason, a correspondent with the Houston Chronicle, in an interview with Politico.com.

ABC’s Martha Raddatz, appearing on CNN, complained that the old McClellan hadn’t “told us this before” and accused him of adopting a new set of talking points, “like a robot with a new software program.”

But under intense pressure from the blogosphere—which turns out to have a surprisingly long memory—a growing list of industry leaders have begun to come clean about their shortcomings. 

“I do think we were remiss in not asking some of the right questions,” said CBS nightly news anchor Katie Couric.  “There was a lot of pressure from the Bush White House that actually affected some of the coverage.”

CNN Congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin was far more explicit.  Her statement is so troubling that it deserves the full transcript treatment:

I think the press corps dropped the ball in the beginning when the lead up to war began.  The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the President’s high approval ratings.

My own experience at the White House was that the higher the President’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives, and I was not at this network at the time, but the more pressure I had from these executives to put on positive stories about the President.

Pressed for details about how exactly political and corporate pressure affected her coverage of the war, Yellin admitted that news executives “would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive.”

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann chimed in, outing his colleagues this way:  “I think many in the media, liberal or otherwise, would rant and rave and say, ‘No, this is not possibly true,’ and then tell you off the record, ‘Yeah, we did lay back, possibly for patriotic reason, partially for fear.’”

The damning part of McClellan’s revelations—and the journalistic confessions that have followed—is that they’re still considered controversial within the journalism community.  Almost exactly four years ago, the New York Times published an astounding mea culpa, acknowledging its widespread failure to accurately cover the build-up to the Iraq War. 

In its internal report, the Times refuted the notion that the paper’s shortcomings were the responsibility of individual reporters, such as Judith Miller.  Instead, they cited a systemic problem on the part of “editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism.”

The Times went on to acknowledge that its reporters were deliberately manipulated by a network of exiled Iraqi informants, working in tandem with “hard-liners” within the Bush Administration.  That document should have been a wake-up call for the entire industry.

But evidence has continued to mount that the country’s premier news outlets were deliberately outmaneuvered, intimidated, and exploited by the Administration and its war planners.  We know that the Pentagon established a new office to create and spin pre-war intelligence.  We know that President Bush selectively declassified intelligence reports in order to shape press coverage.  We know that senior Bush officials came to view the press as a convenient and malleable tool. 

During the Scooter Libby trial in 2004, public court documents revealed a set of notes taken by Cathie Martin, former communications director for Vice President Dick Cheney. “I suggested we put the vice president on [NBC’s] Meet the Press,” Martin wrote, adding, “It’s our best format.” The goal for a sit-down with Sunday morning giant Tim Russert, according to Martin, was simple:  to “control message.”

Only now, in 2008, are industry leaders beginning to confront the widespread inadequacies in their newsgathering techniques, their management structures, and their ethical guidelines.  “What do we say,” asked MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, “when the New York Times was used and other media were used as well?”

In his media blog, the Washington Post’s Mike Dobbs, himself a foreign policy correspondent during the run-up to the war, acknowledged that the “failure went from top to bottom.”

Editors [at the Washington Post] were reluctant to give front-page prominence to stories that challenged the administration’s rationale for war, including one by Walter Pincus questioning the evidence about weapons of mass destruction that ended up on page A17. But reporters (including myself) often failed to display sufficient skepticism about the administration’s claims.

After first trying to brush off McClellan’s accusations, NBC’s David Gregory also hoisted the white flag.  “We got it wrong,” he conceded, during a broadcast of the program Hardball.  “If you believe our job was to get it right and to pierce past that manipulation, the body politic of the press wasn’t able to do that in this particular case.”

The biggest story of our generation and journalists got it wrong.  They got it wrong because the people they cover were smarter, more aggressive, and more ruthless.  The question now is how news organizations will prepare for the next complicated and controversial story. 

So far, there seems to be little reason for optimism. Just last month, a New York Times investigation revealed that major news networks (including NPR, where my own stories frequently appear) were still employing military pundits who were secretly coached by the Pentagon.

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz slammed what he called the Military-Media Complex:  “Military pundits obviously come at their subject with a viewpoint sympathetic to their longtime profession,” he argued.  “What has been obscured is the extent to which many are still part of the military’s web and entangled with companies trying to milk the Pentagon for profit.”

When asked about the media’s failure to properly vet key military sources in the middle of a controversial and politically charged war, Bruce Drake, NPR’s former vice president of news, said (in an interview with NPR’s ombudsman), “It was a pretty hectic time and there was a lot going on.  I don’t think there’s any more mystery.”

Indeed.  Even less mysterious is the fact that most Americans get it.  They know that the media failed them.  A recent survey by the Poynter Institute found that only 16 percent of people think coverage of the Iraq War has been “good.” Only 2 percent gave the industry an “excellent” rating.  By contrast, nearly half described the work as “poor.”

Fortunately, the solutions aren’t all that complicated.  The way forward is a return to basic hard-nosed journalism.  First, we have to rebuild the firewalls between the corporate and entertainment divisions and our news operations.  Without this basic ethical framework, reporters cannot be expected to do their jobs. 

Reporters and editors who cover Washington should go to work prepared for a fight.  Ditch the nice-guy stuff.  Embrace the notion that you will often the bearers of bad news.  Sometimes your questions should make people hate our guts.  Which is why it’s probably not a good idea to go to Dick Cheney’s Christmas party—or Barak Obama’s, for that matter. 

Newsrooms have to broaden their sources.  Regularly include unpopular points of view.  During the build-up to a war, that means featuring peace activists to balance your staff of military experts.  Five years after the anti-war movement got it mostly right about Iraq, their leaders and thinkers remain largely invisible in the national media.

Above all else, we have to embrace to the tradition of aggressive, unflinching skepticism.  The great investigative journalist I.F. Stone once said that all governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. 

Amen, brother.  In my first newsroom, we had a similar saying:  If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.  The same goes double for Presidents, especially the ones who say they have a great reason for starting a war. 

Brian Mann is author of “Welcome to the Homeland,” a personal journey through the conservative politics of rural America.  He reports frequently on rural issues for National Public Radio and lives in a small town in northern New York.

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