You may have noticed I deleted this post a few minutes ago. Dumb accident on my part. If you lost a comment, I’m very sorry. ~Chris
I just wanted to do my own little addendum to BooMan’s earlier post about the pattern of misinformation produced by Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post regarding Iraq and now Iran. Misinformation which is often contradicted by that newspaper’s own reporting. BooMan was concerned about a particular piece of propaganda published in this morning’s edition, claiming that Iran could produce a working bomb in as little as three years, which is unlikely, at best. BooMan concludes by writing that we need to get the Washington Post Editorial page to issue a correction “before Hiatt’s comments become conventional wisdom and help contribute to an unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran.”
That’s where I’m going to jump in for a second. A few hours ago, just before a nice long nap, I had the pleasure of watching the disinformation produced by the Post Editorial Board jump directly off the paper and on to my television screen. ABC’s World News Tonight reproduced many of those same claims tonight, mostly relying on “senior administration officials,” with precious little debunking from actual experts. The video isn’t up yet, but you can read the print version of the Martha Raddatz report here. Notice that the subtitle of the piece is “Experts Believe That Iran Is Three to Five Years Away From Making a Nuclear Bomb.” That didn’t take long, did it?
I’m astonished that major news organizations still rely on administration sources in their reporting. At the very least they should add some caveat like “Senior administration sources, who have rarely given us honest or reliable information, said today that…blah blah blah.” Perhaps you’d like to fire a copy of your earlier letter to the Post Editorial board, off to World News Tonight as well. The contact form is here.
John Aravosis has more on the World News Tonight piece. He points out that this is all about politics. The timing is perfect to alter the 2006 elections. Unless you enjoyed the 2002 elections, call this fear mongering bullshit for what it is, early and often.