Now They Tell Us: In recent months, US news organizations have rushed to expose the Bush administration's pre-war failings on Iraq. [...]
Watching and reading all this, one is tempted to ask, where were you all before the war? Why didn't we learn more about these deceptions and concealments in the months when the administration was pressing its case for regime change?when, in short, it might have made a difference? [...]
The contrast between the press's feistiness since the end of the war and its meekness before it highlights one of the most entrenched and disturbing features of American journalism: its pack mentality. Editors and reporters don't like to diverge too sharply from what everyone else is writing. When a president is popular and a consensus prevails, journalists shrink from challenging him. Even now, papers like the Times and the Post seem loath to give prominent play to stories that make the administration look too bad. Thus, stories about the increasing numbers of dead and wounded in Iraq ?both American and Iraqi?are usually consigned to page 10 or 12, where they won't cause readers too much discomfort.
