[Media-watch] [US] Editorial Pages and the Case for War - Columbia Journalism Review - March/April 2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

THE [US] EDITORIAL PAGES AND THE CASE FOR WAR
Did our leading newspapers set too low a bar for a preemptive attack?

By Chris Mooney

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/2/mooney-war.asp

On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered his now
infamous presentation to the United Nations concerning Iraq's alleged
weapons of mass destruction and its ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network.
At the time, many journalists, members of Congress, and key Security Council
nations remained unconvinced of the necessity of invading Iraq. Laced with
declassified satellite imagery, communications intercepts, and information
gleaned from Iraqi defectors, Powell's speech sought to bolster the Bush
administration's case for war by demonstrating an "accumulation of facts and
disturbing patterns of behavior" on Iraq's part. And it enjoyed a strikingly
warm reception from one key U.S. audience: the editorial page writers of
major newspapers.
"Irrefutable," declared The Washington Post. Powell "may not have produced a
'smoking gun,'" added The New York Times, but his speech left "little
question that Mr. Hussein had tried hard to conceal one." Similar
assessments came from four other editorial pages that cjr chose to examine -
the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street
Journal. Many foreign papers viewed Powell's presentation more skeptically,
but the endorsements from these six leading domestic editorial boards - four
of which would ultimately support the war - strengthened Bush's hand
considerably. "If and when the administration gets editorial support from
the elite media, it's just about a done deal, because the public will fall
in line," says David Domke, a professor of communication at the University
of Washington in Seattle who has studied editorial page response to 9/11 and
the Iraq war.

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