By Greg Mitchell, Editor and Publisher, 9 February 2008
NEW YORK On February 3, 2003, a New York Times story was topped with: “All Aboard: America’s War Train is Leaving the Station.” Naturally, the world—and the media commentators—anxiously awaited Secretary of State Colin Powell’s appearance at the United Nations on February 5, when he was expected to make the administration’s case for war before a skeptical body.
While most pundits were already sold on the invasion, polls showed that the public was divided—or simply misinformed or confused. So the performance of the much-respected and moderate Powell could go a long way to greasing the skids for war.
In the week that followed, few pundits felt that they needed to do much fact-checking before declaring that Powell had, indeed, made his case. The invasion came six weeks later. Several months after that, it became clear that much of Powell’s presentation was based on wrong or cooked intelligence, and he and his aides have expressed varying degrees of regret about it since.
On a related note – from Mitchell’s blog – Pressing Issues:
‘NYT’ clears Obama of massive drug use — puts it on the front page