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Reliable Sources: Transcript for May 13 (5/13/07) by Howard Kurtz
Syndicated columnist Bill Press suggests an idea relatively novel to cable punditry, if not to the rest of us:Media, in large part, gave us this war, because they went along and repeated everything that George Bush said without asking tough questions.... In part, they are responsible for this war, because they didn't do their job.
Howard Kurtz, the host of the show, responds incredulously, asking if "you're saying they gave us this war? That we...would not have gone to war had it not been for the press?" Kurtz's scorn for the belief that journalism had the power to change the real world explains a lot about the feckless, navel-gazing media criticism that he indulges in.
And fellow guest Laura Ingraham agrees that "that's ridiculous," while pretending the only journalistic alternative to "just take it and swallow it" is that "now the press is supposed to be an intelligence agency, too." Press reasonably replies that "no, just tell the truth" would be the responsible tack, but Ingraham insists "their answers would have been they have WMDs" since "every intelligence agency in the world thought there were WMD." FAIR has documented a much different reality in Extra!: Wrong on Iraq? Not Everyone (3–4/06) by Steve Rendall, showing that some journalists did ask the right questions and found the real answers--and had their work marginalized.
FAIR does not endorse every opinion expressed or vouch for facts presented here, except by ourselves. Send link suggestions to jnaureckas@fair.org.
