The USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier is on its way to the Persian Gulf. (AP Photo)

How the press can prevent another Iraq
COMMENTARY | February 02, 2007

Journalists, and through us the public, have a grave responsibility to not be complicit in another march to war on false pretenses. So what lessons should we have learned from Iraq?

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

Lessons we thought had been learned from Vietnam were forgotten in the rush to invade Iraq. And now, as we cover President Bush’s ratcheting up of the rhetoric against Iran, it’s looking like the lessons we should have learned from Iraq may not have been learned at all. So at the risk of stating the obvious, here are some thoughts about what those lessons were.  (Feel free to add more in comments.)

You Can’t Be Too Skeptical of Authority

• Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie.

• Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate.

• Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it should make the headlines. The absence of supporting evidence for their assertion -- or a preponderance of evidence that contradicts the assertion -- may be more newsworthy than the assertion itself.

• Don’t print anonymous assertions. Demand that sources make themselves accountable for what they insist is true.

Provocation Alone Does Not Justify War

• War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better.

• Demand to know what happens if the war (or tactical strike) doesn’t go as planned?

• Demand to know what happens if it does? What happens after “victory”?

• Ask them: Isn’t it possible this will make things worse, rather than better?

Be Particularly Skeptical of Secrecy

• Don’t assume that these officials, with their access to secret intelligence, know more than you do.

• Alternately, assume that they do indeed know more than you do – and are trying to keep intelligence that would undermine their arguments secret.

Watch for Rhetorical Traps

• Keep an eye on how advocates of war frame the arguments. Don’t buy into those frames unless you think they’re fair.

• Keep a particular eye out for the no-lose construction. For example: If we can’t find evidence of WMD, that proves Saddam is hiding them.

• Watch out for false denials. In the case of Iran, when administration officials say “nobody is talking about invading Iran,” point out that the much more likely scenario is bombing Iran, and that their answer is therefore a dodge.

Don’t Just Give Voice to the Administration Officials

• Give voice to the skeptics; don’t marginalize and mock them.

• Listen to and quote the people who got it right last time: The intelligence officials, state department officials, war-college instructors and many others who predicted the problem we are now facing, but who were largely ignored.

• Offer the greatest and most guaranteed degree of confidentiality to whisteblowers offering information that contradicts the official government position. (By contrast, don’t offer any confidentiality to administration spinners.)

Look Outside Our Borders

• Pay attention to international opinion.

• Raise the question: What do people in other countries think? Why should we be so different?

• Keep an eye out for how the international press is covering this story. Why should we be so different?

Understand the Enemy

• Listen to people on the other side, and report their position.

• Send more reporters into the country we are about to attack and learn about their views, their politics and their culture.

• Don’t allow the population of any country to be demonized. All humans deserve to be humanized.

• Demand to know why the administration won’t open a dialogue with the enemy. Refusing to talk to someone you are threatening to attack should be considered inherently suspect behavior.

Encourage Public Debate

• The nation is not well served when issues of war and peace are not fully debated in public. It’s reasonable for the press to demand that Congress engage in a full, substantial debate.

• Cover the debate exhaustively and substantively.

Write about Motives

• Historically, the real motives for wars have often not been the public motives. Try to report on the motivations of the key advocates for war.

• Don’t assume that the administration is being forthright about its motives.

• If no one in the inner circle will openly discuss their motives, then encourage reasonable speculation about their motives.

Talk to the Military

• Find out what the military is being told to prepare for.

Dan Froomkin is the deputy editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project. He is also Washington Bureau Chief for the Huffington Post. E-mail: froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

Comments

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How the Press Can Prevent Another Iraq Posted by peter robinson - retired citizen 02/04/2007, 11:20 PM Excellent summation. It occurs to me that it would have applied equally well to the federal legislature after 9/11, not to mention today. After all, we once paid them to do just such work. Granted, a few of them made some of these points then and received little or no coverage, but other stalwarts were busy worrying about their presidential prospects in 2004 and beyond. So we now face the spectacle of another campaign positioning season preventing what ought to be the real work of Congress and the press, that is, holding and covering, respectively, extensive hearings on exactly how we were led to a predictably disastrous war and whether similar plans are being prepared for an expansion of this war into Iran. Instead we are treated to apparently sober assessments in the press of which of the terminally ambitious can raise the most money with which to craft public relations messages that will allow them to avoid talking with clarity about the serious matter of war as business.

Posted by Tom Snow - Citizen 02/05/2007, 12:35 PM Great summary. I would add something related to asking for objectives to be defined. For the last four years, I have been completely stunned by the fact that no one in the administration has ever stated the objectives of this war in clear terms (and no one in the media has asked for them). For the so-called "MBA president," this basic business concept should have been a no-brainer. To use another business concept, objectives should be "SMART," that is: Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant, and Time-bound

This Is News? Posted by dave abston - 02/05/2007, 01:11 PM I cannot believe a working journalist would need to read this list and apply it to their job. Sadly, they do - and not just the rookies. Every high-priced "pundit" working for our major media outlets should be forced to read this every morning with their coffee.

Emphasize the policy, not the politics. Posted by Steve Shepherd - 02/05/2007, 01:38 PM Journalists are obsessed with politicians and political machinations, rather than the policies that are at issue. They have it exactly backwards.

Old school lesson Posted by Jeff Dietz - 02/05/2007, 02:50 PM You forgot "follow the money". If the loudest proponents of a war (or any policy for that matter) stand to profit from it, mistrust is the appropriate response.

Very Naive Posted by bc c - 02/05/2007, 06:28 PM You assume the corporate media is still some earnest outside entity digging for the truth. Those days are long gone. When has the mainstream media ever mentioned the real reason why Bush went into Iraq and the real reason he wants to go into Iran? (the short answer for both: to defend the U.S. dollar). These "lessons" you have spelled out are obsolete. It's 2007 and the media is owned by a handful of billionaires. Anyone attempting to follow your lessons would be demoted or fired. Sad, isn't it? But this is the real world.

Posted by Saul Friedman - 02/06/2007, 01:59 PM And tell Pentagon and other reporters to refuse to keep secret military invitations to accompany forces planning to strike.

Need a follow-up story Posted by Nick Wreden - FusionBrand 02/06/2007, 06:33 PM This is absolutely, expletive-deleted brilliant. It needs to be taped to the heads of every J-school student, and tattooed on the hands of every reporter in DC. However, I would love two follow-up stories. One is a similar column with advice for editors. Prior to the invasion, several reporters did what they are paid to do (eg, Pincus at Post), but their stories were downplayed inside. The second would be to go back to the reporters who originally covered the run-up to the Iraq war, and ask them, "Why did you not follow these simple rules? If not, why not?"

And another aspect ... Posted by Tom McFarland - Vietnam Vet Not Amused 02/07/2007, 09:03 AM One of the reasons the American public came to think the invasion of Iraq was justified was the volume and momentum of discussion about Iraq. Media outlets were flooded with spokespersons laying out the official line. Much of that would be countered by your excellent suggestions, but I wonder if we have to ask about the commersial demand to fill TV and radio news programs, newspapers, and news magazines with "news". SOMETHING has to fill that space to justify the advertising: first the story, then the opposing viewpoint, the panel discussions, the public polls, and finally the focused single-topic "investigative" reporting. I never thought journalism had to be this voracious, but... Ultimately, The elections and other false steps by the American public have been the result of appeals to the emotions, not logical discourse, and fear-laden headlines sell more papers than reasoned debate.

Some of us have been watching all along and still are... Posted by Tish Wells - McClatchy Newspapers 02/07/2007, 04:12 PM although too many unquestionably were being played by the Administration, as the Libby trial has shown. Knight Ridder reporting, now McClatchy's, has been against the grain. All along, our reporters have challenged the conventional wisdom and many of the Administration's claims. That's made us unpopular in some quarters. For example: Sept. 22, 2001: While President Bush's top advisers debate whether to target Iraq for devastating bombardment as part of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, U.S. officials and terrorism experts say there is little evidence Saddam Hussein's regime played a role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Feb. 13, 2002: President Bush has decided to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power and ordered the CIA, the Pentagon and other agencies to devise a combination of military, diplomatic and covert steps to achieve that goal, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday. . . . The president's decision has launched the United States on a course that will have major ramifications for the U.S. military, the Middle East's future political alignment, international oil flows and Bush's own war on terrorism. Russia and most of America's European allies have expressed alarm about the administration's escalating rhetoric on Iraq. The course also is fraught with potential military difficulties, with most experts on Iraq warning that a campaign there would not be as swift or virtually free of American casualties as Afghanistan. Sept. 6, 2002: Senior U.S. officials with access to top-secret intelligence on Iraq say they have detected no alarming increase in the threat that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein poses to American security and Middle East stability. Oct. 4, 2002: The CIA released a new report Friday on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that added little to earlier appraisals but exposed a sharp dispute among U.S. intelligence experts over Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program. The dispute centers on thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes that Iraq allegedly has tried to purchase from foreign suppliers. According to the CIA report, most intelligence experts believe the tubes were to be made into casings for centrifuges that could be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. (cont...)

Cont... Posted by Tish Wells - McClatchy Newspapers 02/07/2007, 04:15 PM But the CIA report notes that some intelligence analysts disagree, arguing that the tubes probably were intended to make conventional weapons, the report said. Oct. 8, 2002: While President Bush marshals congressional and international support for invading Iraq, a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war. More of these are available on our website (now McClatchyDC) in the Iraq Intelligence Archive. We are continuing to do the same kind of reporting - except that now on it's the march to Iran. Sept. 15, 2006: In an echo of the intelligence wars that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a high-stakes struggle is brewing within the Bush administration and in Congress over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program and involvement in terrorism. Feb. 2, 2007: The Bush administration is escalating its confrontation with Iran, sending an additional aircraft carrier and minesweepers into the Persian Gulf as it accuses the Islamic regime in Tehran of arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq for attacks on American troops. ... The Bush administration, which made exaggerated or false claims about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to al-Qaida to justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq, hasn't provided evidence to back up its charges. Mr. McFarland makes a good point about the numerous information outlets, and their need to fill the empty time/space. It's still a problem - many of these outlets are being filled from the same small set of sources, and the smaller the pool of sources, the more easily they can become targets of manipulation or the advertising technique of repetition. Thus a lie becomes an "accepted" truth - Saddam Hussein was connected with 9/11 - a myth that has been exploded more than once. Journalists are not stenographers. It's our job to be skeptical of the motives behind those in power rather than just reporting what they say.

another demand Posted by Bonnie Tamres-Moore Tamres-Moore - 02/07/2007, 06:26 PM Lord, I love you more than my luggage Dan, I do. One suggestion for your list: "Demand to know how 'victory' is defined"

What Tish Said Posted by Dan Froomkin - Deputy editor, Niemanwatchdog.org 02/07/2007, 07:06 PM I didn't mean to suggest that everyone failed, either last time or this time. Your comment reminded me of Gil Cranberg's item for NiemanWatchdog in July, in which he urged the Pulitzer Committee to award a belated award to the Knight Ridder bureau and its "lonely journalism" in the run-up to the war. You can read it here: http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction ...

not only that, but also Posted by Carol Cleveland - Ex-English teacher and pot banger 02/07/2007, 07:41 PM Dear Mr. Froomkin: I've just read your list of admonitions to the press, and find it a very good, reasonably thorough, list. And I have a few additional points that I think are worthy of consideration. These are: 1. Try to report facts as much as possible. If you report what someone said, that is a fact, but there are other classes of fact that may be far more significant that what an interested party said about those facts, or what they did not say about the facts. Indeed, if they ignore facts almost completely, that may be the story. It may take longer to get at the facts than simply to report what someone said, but the press is trusted as far as it is accurate and reports the right story, and if the public has to wait a little longer for accuracy, it will cheerfully do so. 2. In analyzing what someone has said, decide first whether a legitimate policy point is being made, or whether an attack on the person who advocates the policy is the sole point of the comment. For example, if Tony Snow says that John Warner is helping Osama bin Laden, that is an attack on the person, and not responsive to whatever Mr. Warner has been saying about what to do about Iraq. 3. Try not to conduct a "political analysis" if you are purportedly reporting news. Or if you must analyze as you report a story, bring other perspectives to bear besides what the possible "political" outcome, or motive, is. There are a lot more useful points to be made. I hope you will keep up the effort you've begun here, and I hope you'll demonstrate regularly how it should be done.

Proud liberal Posted by Claire Fairchild - 02/07/2007, 09:20 PM Keep up the good work, Dan!!! As I posted in WP a while back, "who, what, where, when, why and how?". I learned this back in high school. Yet these questions are NOT being answered by the media most of the time even today.

Many thanks for the rules Posted by Tony Litwinko - California-based freelance writer and editor. 02/08/2007, 03:16 AM I haven't been so pleased since I first discovered I.F.Stone back in the Sixties. In this day and age, "all governments lie" is not enough, and you have developed some journalistic rubrics that are commendable. Thank you. (Now for the praxis . . . )

Now To Apply the Rules Posted by R C - Ra Conteur 02/09/2007, 12:04 AM A good set of rules for this game. Now, how about some intrepid reporter (need not even be "investigative") dig just a bit into the 9/11 demolition event. Without invoking Alex Jones or the Scholars for Truth, how about someone explain how it is that that building... Building #7, came to fall down so unceremoniously?

Best "don't trust authority" lesson since 1969 Posted by David Grant - Citizen 02/11/2007, 03:15 PM Dan Froomkin has put together the best lesson in not trusting authority since Nathan Pusey and his staff of deans taught me that at Harvard in 1969. Even better, Froomkin has taught it openly, rather than by bad example.

Not the first time Posted by E J Owens - 02/13/2007, 09:01 PM In 1898 William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, two rival New York newspaper publishers were so instrumental in swaying public opinion that Congress and President McKinley were enticed to declare war on Spain. Their motive? Sensational stories sold more newspapers. President Bush and his administration deserves most of the blame for this unnecessary war, but the MSM did next to nothing to try and stop it. They did such a good job the public STILL thought Bush was the best man in 2004 when they elected him for a second term.

A seriously conservative reader agrees... Posted by staghounds http://staghounds.blogspot.com/ - 02/15/2007, 09:43 PM I don’t like Mr. Froomkin’s politics at all, but he makes plenty of good conservative points here. Not just about the press. Legislators, executives, and commanders should apply the same tests to their own ideas. The founders knew that war is the greatest nursery of despotism. Not only through direct government power enhancement, but through the way that the process of going to war and being at war dull the edge of civil citizenship. Wars- even unavoidable, essential, defensive, and victorious wars- are corrosive of liberty. To steal a line, wars are like kryptonite to freedom. ALL citizens should ALWAYS assume governments lie. The burden of proof is, and should always be, on government in every phase of its life. I might have phrased some of these things differently, but before ANY war I’d hope the press did all these things. Even the “so different” things. I don’t mean it like Froomkin and Kerry do. But if we are talking war and Surinam isn’t, “why?” is a fair question. I’d want to know why the asserted casus belli affects us and not Surinam. All that is is another way of asking how this “threat” directly touches on our, as opposed to someone else’s, interests. Why do WE have to go to war over this, and Surinam doesn’t? I’d expect a reporter to ask it, and a war advocate to be able to answer it. If the answer isn’t screamingly obvious, maybe we can hold hard. I’m sure that Mrs. Thatcher (for example) could have answered the “why are we different” question to the satisfaction of her free citizen masters. Mr. Roosevelt couldn’t on 12-6-41. Two days later, he could. “What’s different” applies to the target, too. It’s a good question to ask about tyrants Mugabe and Hussein, theocracies Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, or “unauthorized” nuclear powers Iran and Pakistan. I cannot imagine a Washington or Lincoln disagreeing with any of Mr. Froomkin’s points. Certainly not F.D. R., who was trumpeting the answers to all of them long before Pearl Harbour. Lastly, I hope that Mr. Froomkin and his leaders will apply the same guidelines to ALL government programs. Starting with "Universal Health Care".

oops, Posted by staghounds http://staghounds.blogspot.com/ - 02/15/2007, 09:46 PM READERS. I meant READERS should demand these things about lefty programs. http://staghounds.blogspot.com/ ...

Keep Applying the Rules after the Invasion/Bombing Posted by Robert Posey - 02/26/2007, 04:02 PM Its important not to stop applying these types of rules after the first bombs fall. When things like the P. Act come around, apply the "Will it Make Things Better" test to each individual part of the new restrictions. Act are the civil rights protections being end ran because of need or because the Adminstration/Law Enforcement never liked them in the first place. Is the new threat REALLY bigger than the threat from all the Drug Dealers, Gangs and just freelance Pyscho's we normally have? For example if the Government wants to collect even more information without any checks and balances, a fair question might be are they able to process what they already gather. The answer would be a resounding NO, so why do they need fewer filters on what information they gather, wouldn't that make us less safe and Less Free? In general, just because some leader says X is for the war effort, doesn't mean that it will help the war effort. If X is something that the political party in power has wanted for years, like drilling in ANWR, ask for them to prove how a pitance of low grade oil 10 years from now will help stop Bin Laden.

just learn from the pre-Iraq War reporting Posted by Brigitte Nacos - Political Scientist 02/26/2007, 07:52 PM All members of the news media need to do is this: review the reporting during the build-up to the Iraq war with its slant in favor of pro-administration, pro-war sources, arguments, and alleged evidence. It seems that the administration propaganda to make the case for actions against Iran is quite similar. Hopefully, this time around the U.S. news media are no longer traumatized by 9/11 and intimidated by the patriotism police. reflectivepundit.com

How About Consistency? Posted by R C - Ra Conteur 03/04/2007, 04:53 PM In applying these ever-so-pragmatic rules and cautions not only to the "run-up" to the "war" - but to the seminal event that purportedly instigated the run up?? One becomes paralyzed in consternation at the repeated avoidance of these journalistic principles applied to the events of the 9/11 event. How does one argue straight faced for good journalism in light of the mincing silence surrounding WTC? "Exaggeration leads the coalition of disbelief."

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Lies and secrecy Posted by Phil Koontz 01/10/2010, 04:47 PM Lies and secrecy are the opposite of a representative government. If we elect people to office, their duty is to act in our interest. When a politician lies and covers up what he does, he should be automatically disqualified from office. Any lie, any secret. IMHO. Submit a comment - Jump to top of list