Iran Nuclear Coverage Echoes Iraq War Media Frenzy
NEW YORK -- Military strikes expected! Weapons inspectors called in! A murky al Qaeda connection! And Cheney says time's up for Ira...
Wait. Haven't we seen this movie before?
It's already been a decade since the media hyped bogus WMD claims prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But it sure feels like 2002 for anyone who was around then and is now scanning newspaper headlines or watching TV talking-heads discuss a possible Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities -- an act which could pull the U.S. into another thorny Middle East military conflict.
Some of the media's more overheated Iran coverage bears an eerie resemblance to Iraq coverage, but instead of former Vice President Dick Cheney we have his daughter Liz Cheney making the Sunday show rounds.
"A nuclear weapon in the hands of the world's worst sponsor of terror, one of them, is something we can't stand for," Cheney said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
The Iran nuclear story has also led several network newscasts this week. On Tuesday, ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer talked of a "shadow war being waged by Iran," followed by chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross describing a "violent series of attacks by Iran," which may be retaliation for the recent killing of Iranian scientists.
CBS News anchor Scott Pelley kicked off Wednesday's broadcast by saying that Iran is "defying the world," while NBC's Brian Williams asked if "the U.S. about to get dragged into a new confrontation."
One national security reporter, who has covered the intelligence community and Iran but was not authorized to comment, says that pre-Iraq War coverage and recent Iran coverage are "terrifyingly similar."
"I don't think we are falling totally back into where we were before, but I do think you're seeing, in some corners of our profession, we're making the same mistakes we made a decade ago," the reporter said. "We're taking things at face value and we're rushing to get ahead of a story that we don't know where it's going."
While questions have loomed for years about Iran's nuclear intentions and ability to produce weapons-grade uranium, we're now in the midst of a full-scale flood of stories suggesting that Iran is on track to build a nuclear bomb, and even some speculating that the Iranian regime may strike the United States, perhaps in collusion with terrorists.
On Wednesday, British broadcaster Sky News -- citing intelligence officials -- claimed that Iran and al Qaeda "have established an operational relationship amid fears the terror group is planning a spectacular attack against the West." The Daily Telegraph, another British outlet, published a similar story attributing the link to what "officials believe."
National security and intelligence reporting often requires quoting anonymous officials, of course, and is subject to the same pitfalls that other source-centric beats face (like Wall Street dealmaking, for example). Even a piece on coverage of that coverage -- like this one -- includes one anonymous source. All of which begs a very germane question: To what extent is this community of foreign policy background sources spinning the media on Iran? And does the media really have any way of meaningfully assessing the merits of what those sources are saying?
Exhibit A from the pre-Iraq invasion days for why more caution may be in order: the false reports of a "Prague connection" between 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi officials -- a thinly-sourced story promoted in the media and seized upon by officials from the administration of former President George W. Bush.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier, is an inviting target. He has long spoken about confronting Israel, and he routinely makes outrageous statements that commentators have seized upon to justify a preventive strike to disrupt Iran's nuclear program.
"I cannot imagine the Israelis are going to allow Iran to go nuclear and to hold the Damocles sword over 6 million Jews all over again," columnist Charles Krauthammer said last week on Fox News. "Israel was established to prevent a second Holocaust, not to invite one."
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A nicely detailed summary of other hysterical and paranoid claims being promoted by war apologists continues at the above link
NEW YORK -- Military strikes expected! Weapons inspectors called in! A murky al Qaeda connection! And Cheney says time's up for Ira...
Wait. Haven't we seen this movie before?
It's already been a decade since the media hyped bogus WMD claims prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But it sure feels like 2002 for anyone who was around then and is now scanning newspaper headlines or watching TV talking-heads discuss a possible Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities -- an act which could pull the U.S. into another thorny Middle East military conflict.
Some of the media's more overheated Iran coverage bears an eerie resemblance to Iraq coverage, but instead of former Vice President Dick Cheney we have his daughter Liz Cheney making the Sunday show rounds.
"A nuclear weapon in the hands of the world's worst sponsor of terror, one of them, is something we can't stand for," Cheney said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
The Iran nuclear story has also led several network newscasts this week. On Tuesday, ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer talked of a "shadow war being waged by Iran," followed by chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross describing a "violent series of attacks by Iran," which may be retaliation for the recent killing of Iranian scientists.
CBS News anchor Scott Pelley kicked off Wednesday's broadcast by saying that Iran is "defying the world," while NBC's Brian Williams asked if "the U.S. about to get dragged into a new confrontation."
One national security reporter, who has covered the intelligence community and Iran but was not authorized to comment, says that pre-Iraq War coverage and recent Iran coverage are "terrifyingly similar."
"I don't think we are falling totally back into where we were before, but I do think you're seeing, in some corners of our profession, we're making the same mistakes we made a decade ago," the reporter said. "We're taking things at face value and we're rushing to get ahead of a story that we don't know where it's going."
While questions have loomed for years about Iran's nuclear intentions and ability to produce weapons-grade uranium, we're now in the midst of a full-scale flood of stories suggesting that Iran is on track to build a nuclear bomb, and even some speculating that the Iranian regime may strike the United States, perhaps in collusion with terrorists.
On Wednesday, British broadcaster Sky News -- citing intelligence officials -- claimed that Iran and al Qaeda "have established an operational relationship amid fears the terror group is planning a spectacular attack against the West." The Daily Telegraph, another British outlet, published a similar story attributing the link to what "officials believe."
National security and intelligence reporting often requires quoting anonymous officials, of course, and is subject to the same pitfalls that other source-centric beats face (like Wall Street dealmaking, for example). Even a piece on coverage of that coverage -- like this one -- includes one anonymous source. All of which begs a very germane question: To what extent is this community of foreign policy background sources spinning the media on Iran? And does the media really have any way of meaningfully assessing the merits of what those sources are saying?
Exhibit A from the pre-Iraq invasion days for why more caution may be in order: the false reports of a "Prague connection" between 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi officials -- a thinly-sourced story promoted in the media and seized upon by officials from the administration of former President George W. Bush.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier, is an inviting target. He has long spoken about confronting Israel, and he routinely makes outrageous statements that commentators have seized upon to justify a preventive strike to disrupt Iran's nuclear program.
"I cannot imagine the Israelis are going to allow Iran to go nuclear and to hold the Damocles sword over 6 million Jews all over again," columnist Charles Krauthammer said last week on Fox News. "Israel was established to prevent a second Holocaust, not to invite one."
====
A nicely detailed summary of other hysterical and paranoid claims being promoted by war apologists continues at the above link
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