Moyers Probes Press About Iraq

In a long-overdue move, PBS’ Bill Moyers is turning his lens on top journalists from mainstream press outlets about their actions, or lack thereof, in the months leading up to the Iraq war.  Editor & Publisher reports that some subjects, such as Dan Rather, were upfront about their roles and failings in “Buying the War,” while others were not as willing to own up.

Editor & Publisher:

Among the few heroes of this devastating film are reporters with the Knight Ridder/McClatchy bureau in D.C. Tragically late, Walter Isaacson, who headed CNN, observes, “The people at Knight Ridder were calling the colonels and the lieutenants and the people in the CIA and finding out, you know, that the intelligence is not very good. We should’ve all been doing that.”

At the close, Moyers mentions some of the chief proponents of the war who refused to speak to him for this program, including Thomas Friedman, Bill Kristol, Roger Ailes, Charles Krauthammer, Judith Miller, and William Safire.

But Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor, admits, “I don’t think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war…We didn’t dig enough. And we shouldn’t have been fooled in this way.”

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Here’s lookin’ at you, journos:  PBS host Moyers.