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Yes, the Press Helps Start Wars

Carpenter, Ted Galen
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/yes-the-press-helps-start-wars

Publisher:  The American Conservative
Date Written:  10/08/2018
Year Published:  2018  
Resource Type:  Article

History shows that a jingoistic media can whip up support for hardline policies, as Trump rightly pointed out.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The role of an irresponsible press in shaping a pro-war narrative was even more evident in the prelude to the 2003 U.S. military intervention in Iraq. New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other prominent mainstream journalists were especially culpable in publicizing erroneous information about Saddam Hussein's government regarding two emotionally charged issues. They uncritically circulated "evidence" from Iraqi defectors and George W. Bush's administration that Iraq was in league with al-Qaeda and may well have had a role in the devastating 9/11 terrorist attacks. And they pushed the case that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was actively working on developing a nuclear arsenal.

Again, it would be too much to place all or even most of the blame for the disastrous Iraq war on gullible or ultra-hawkish journalists. The Bush administration seemed determined to oust Saddam, and it might have attempted to do so even without strong public support. But most of the media was staunchly pro-war, and that bias greatly skewed the narrative presented to the public. When highly respected journalistic institutions like The New York Times circulated story after story highlighting the alleged security threat that Saddam posed, and those stories were then featured in other publications and on TV, it was hardly surprising that much of the public believed the narrative. The tendency of mainstream media outlets to ignore or marginalize war critics amplified their pro-war bias.

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