PBS: Bill Moyers' Buying the War: Cudos to Knight-Ridder

As I mentioned last night, PBS was doing a fund raiser. Along with the special Johnny Cash clips from the 60's, they also ran Bill Moyers' Buying the War, a devasting critique of the Press and its role in selling the Iraq War to the Public in the months before March of 2003. It is clear that the Press, with the exception of Knight-Ridder, became propaganda tools of the Bush administration. They rolled over and practically begged to participate in the sham that was the run up to the war. They completely abdicated their role in keeping the Public informed, in asking the right questions, in being skeptical at every turn. They allowed the administration to lie, over and over.

From the link:

How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? "What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored," says Moyers. "How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?"

Moyers gives credit to the Knight-Ridder news organization for getting it right, for being skeptical, for doing the leg work that uncovered the facts and revealed the lies. Alas, the Knight-Ridder voice was drowned out by the roar of the right wing noise machine and the mis information blared from every available outlet, whether news print or television or radio.

Guess this program was originally aired sometime last spring. I missed it the first time.