- A lack of skepticism toward official U.S. sources has
already led prominent American journalists into embarrassing errors in
their coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, particularly in relation to
claims that proof had been found that Iraq possesses banned weapons.
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- On March 20, the second day of the invasion, U.S. military
sources initially described missiles launched by Iraq as "Scuds"--
the U.S. name for a Soviet-made missile used by Iraq during the Gulf War.
They exceed the range limits imposed on Iraqi weapons by the 1991 ceasefire
agreement.
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- While some reporters appropriately sourced the Scud reports
to military officials, and cautioned their audience about the uncertainty
of the identification, others rushed to report claims as facts. NBC's
Matt Lauer's report was definitive: "We understand they have fired
three missiles. One of those was a Scud missile. It was destroyed by
a Patriot missile battery as it headed toward Kuwait."
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- His colleague Tim Russert was similarly certain, saying,
"Because of last night's activity, clearly the Iraqis are now trying
to respond with at least one Scud fired at the troops mapped on the border
of Kuwait and Iraq." Fellow NBC anchor Brian Williams added, "We
learned one Scud had been intercepted, but two missiles had made it to
Kuwaiti soil."
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- On NPR that day, anchor Bob Edwards was equally sure
about what happened: "Iraq this morning launched Scud missiles at
Kuwait in retaliation for the American strike on Baghdad a few hours earlier."
Correspondent Mike Shuster helpfully pointed out that "these Scuds
are banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions and have a range of
up to 400 miles."
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- ABC's Ted Koppel, "embedded" with an infantry
division, reported matter-of-factly that "there were two Scud missiles
that came in. One was intercepted by a patriot missile." ABC anchor
Derek McGinty had earlier explained that "there was a Scud attack,
one Scud fired from Basra into Kuwait. It was intercepted by an American
patriot battery, and apparently knocked out of the sky. There is still
no word exactly what was on that Scud, whether or not there might have
been any sort of unconventional weaponry onboard."
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- Fox News Channel's William La Jeunesse was not only asserting
that a Scud had been launched, but was drawing conclusions about its significance:
"Now, Iraq is not supposed to have Scuds because they have a range
of 175 up to 400 miles. The limit by the U.N., of course, is like 95 miles.
So, we already know they have something they're not supposed to have."
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- As the day went on, however, the Pentagon was less definitive
about what kind of missile Iraq was using, prompting some journalists to
back off the story. Associated Press reported on March 22 that "Maj.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the vice director of operations for the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference that the Iraqis have not
fired any Scuds and that U.S. forces searching airfields in the far western
desert of Iraq have uncovered no missiles or launchers."
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- Even so, the next day, columnist Peter Bronson (Cincinnati
Enquirer, 3/23/03) was still writing, "The Scuds he swore he did not
have were fired at Kuwait, and Iraq was launching lame denials while the
craters still smoked." Apparently the corrections of the earlier,
incorrect reports had not reached even all of those whose job it is to
follow the news.
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- Reporters were also embarrassed on March 23 by an evaporating
story about a "chemical facility" near the town of Najaf, Iraq,
that was touted by U.S. military officials as a possible smoking gun to
prove disputed claims about Saddam Hussein possessing banned chemical weapons.
While journalists were not typically as credulous of this claim as they
were with the Scud story, and generally remembered to attribute it to military
sources, accounts still tended to be breathless and to extrapolate wildly
from an unconfirmed report.
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- ABC's John McWethy promoted the story with this report:
"Amidst all the fighting, one important new discovery: U.S. officials
say, up the road from Nasarijah, in a town called Najaf, they believe that
they have captured a chemical weapons plant and perhaps more important,
the commanding general of that facility. One U.S. official said he is
a potential 'gold mine' about the weapons Saddam Hussein says he doesn't
have."
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- NBC's Tom Brokaw described the story thusly: "Word
tonight that U.S. forces may have found what U.N. inspectors spent months
searching for, a facility suspected to be a chemical weapons plant, uncovered
by ground troops on the way north to Baghdad." NBC Pentagon correspondent
Jim Miklaszewski added what seemed to be corroborating details: "This
huge chemical complex... was constructed of sand-casted walls, in other
words, meant to camouflage its appearance to blend in with the desert.
Once inside, the soldiers found huge amounts of chemicals, stored chemicals.
They apparently found no chemical weapons themselves, and now military
officials here at the Pentagon say they have yet to determine exactly what
these chemicals are or how they could have been used in weapons."
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- Fox News Channel, less cautious than some of its competitors,
treated the report of a chemical weapons factory as fact in a series of
onscreen banners like "Huge Chemical Weapons Factory Found in So.
Iraq."
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- Some print outlets also hyped the story the next day,
as when the Philadelphia Daily News (10/24/03) reported it as the "biggest
find of the Iraq war" and "a reversal of fortune for American
and British forces at the end of the war's most discouraging day."
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- As it turned out, however, the "discovery"
seemed to be neither a big find nor a reversal of fortune, but simply a
false alarm, and TV reporters began changing their stories. The Dow Jones
news service reported (3/24/03), "U.S. officials said Monday that
no chemical weapons were found at a suspected site at Najaf in central
Iraq, U.S. television networks reported. NBC News reported from the Pentagon
that no chemicals at all were found at the site. CNN, also reporting from
the Pentagon, said officials now believe the plant there was abandoned
long ago by the Iraqis." On March 25, the New York Times reported
that "suggestions on Sunday that a chemical plant in Najaf might be
a weapons site have turned out to be false."
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- U.S.-based journalists are generally quick to caution
readers, when describing an allegation made by Iraq, that the information
"could not be independently confirmed." The fact is that information
provided by any government should be treated with skepticism; reporters
might try extending their critical approach to the U.S. military's statements.
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