A reporter’s passing and a scathing documentary spotlight the best and worst of American journalism.
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
The death of Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam, 73, in a car accident has drawn a flood of tributes. A prolific writer of more than 20 books, the lanky, gruff-voiced Halberstam made his fame as a hard-nosed 29-year old Vietnam War correspondent for The New York Times whose dispatches exposed the false optimism of U.S. officials and commanders about that conflict.
Halberstam’s refusal to take officials at their word and insistence on questioning every available source made him a hero to a generation of journalists who followed. His landmark examination of what went wrong in Vietnam — The Best and the Brightest — was published in 1972 and profiled how ostensibly brilliant statesmen led the country into a bloody, ultimately losing fight in Southeast Asia.
Two days after Halberstam’s death, PBS aired a segment of Bill Moyers’ Journal called “Buying the War,” an examination of the failure of many journalists to adequately question the Bush administration’s justification for invading Iraq. The emotional outpouring after the 9/11 attacks pushed media outlets into self-censorship and suppressed critical analysis.
Phil Donahue’s talk show had high ratings, but because he allowed guests to voice antiwar opinions NBC canceled the program weeks before the war began.
Moyers, who was President Johnson’s press secretary for two years during the Vietnam War, cites a number of examples in which reporters allowed themselves to be used by government sources to spread misinformation or failed to challenge information that later proved erroneous. Particularly disturbing is a prewar news conference by President Bush. Reporters went along with the charade of raising their hands, even though the questioners and their queries already had been selected by Bush’s aides. Instead of questioning Bush’s attempt to falsely link 9/11 and Iraq, reporters settled for softball questions such as how the president’s faith guided him.
In another instance, officials planted a false story in The New York Times indicating that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes to be used to process uranium for nuclear weapons. Vice President Dick Cheney and others then went on Sunday talk shows citing the story as confirmation of Saddam Hussein’s efforts to produce weapons of mass destruction. MORE
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