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Veteran journalist Bill Moyers examines why the government's claims
about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist ties to Saddam
Hussein went mostly unchallenged by the media in the lead-up to the
invasion of Iraq.
August 2007
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In the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, the government's claims
about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist ties to Saddam
Hussein went mostly unchallenged by the media. Four years after
"shock and awe," how the government sold the war has been much
examined, but a big question remains: how and why did the press buy
it? Bill Moyers and his team piece together the reporting that
shows how the media were complicit in shaping the "public mind"
toward the war, and ask what's happened to the press' role as
skeptical "watchdog" over government power. The program features
the work of some intrepid journalists who didn't take the
government's word at face value, including the team of reporters at
Knight Ridder news service whose reporting turned up evidence at
odds with the official view of reality. "Buying the War" includes
interviews with journalists Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim
Russert of "Meet the Press"; Bob Simon of "60 Minutes"; Walter
Isaacson, former president of CNN; and John Walcott, Jonathan
Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers, which was
acquired by the McClatchy Company in 2006.