Bill Moyers on Why the Press Bought the Iraq War
    t r u t h o u t | Programming Note

    Monday 23 April 2007

The media took the Bush administration's Iraq claims at face value, but it didn't have to.
0aBill Moyers Journal: "Buying the War" will broadcast on PBS on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 9:00 p.m. (check local listings - www.pbs.org/moyers).

    The marketing of the war in Iraq by the administration has been much examined, but a critical question remains: How and why did the press buy it? The new Bill Moyers Journal documentary from PBS explores these very questions.

    Bill Moyers and his team piece together the reporting that shows how the media were complicit in shaping the "public mind" toward the war, and ask what's happened to the press's role as skeptical "watchdog" over government power. This segment features the work of some intrepid journalists who didn't take the government's word at face value, including the team of reporters at Knight Ridder news service whose reporting turned up evidence at odds with the official view of reality.