Overview

It is often said that a free press is the watchdog of democracy, insuring that the conduct of our leaders is examined with a critical eye. This makes Greg Mitchell the watchdog of watchdogs, as tracking the performance of the media is his priority at Editor and Publisher, the influential magazine of the newspaper industry. In 2003, Greg Mitchell was one of the few journalists to question the grounds for the war in Iraq. Today, Mitchell looks ahead at lessons for the future with an original introduction and connecting material that updates and unifies his original essays and scrutiny of America's media coverage. With more than 75 of Mitchell's columns, this book provides a unique history of the conflict, from the hyped weapons of mass destruction stories to the surge.

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9781402756573

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Reviews

Worthy of shelving alongside the best of the Iraq books. -- Kirkus Greg Mitchell has given us a razor-sharp critique of how the media and the government connived in one of the great blunders of American foreign policy. Every aspiring journalist, every veteran, every pundit--and every citizen who cares about the difference between illusion and reality, propaganda and the truth, and looked to the press to help keep them separate--should read this book. Twice. --Bill Moyers

With the tragic war in Iraq dragging on, and the drumbeat for new conflicts growing louder, this is more than a five-year history of the biggest foreign policy debacle of our times--it's a cautionary tale that is as relevant as this morning's headlines. Greg Mitchell makes it clear that Iraq is a case study in bad judgment, from the misguided moves of an administration blinded by its zealotry to a complacent media that too often acted as an extension of the White House press office. Read it and weep; read it and get enraged; read it and make sure it doesn't happen again. --Arianna Huffington Worthy of shelving alongside the best of the Iraq books. -- Kirkus Greg Mitchell has given us a razor-sharp critique of how the media and the government connived in one of the great blunders of American foreign policy. Every aspiring journalist, every veteran, every pundit--and every citizen who cares about the difference between illusion and reality, propaganda and the truth, and looked to the press to help keep them separate--should read this book. Twice. --Bill Moyers The profound failure of the American press with regard to the Iraq War may very well be the most significant political story of this generation. Greg Mitchell has established himself as one of our country's most perceptive media critics, and here he provides invaluable insight into how massive journalistic failures enabled the greatest strategic disaster in the nation's history. --Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com columnist and author of A Tragic Legacy and How Would a Patriot Act? Anyone who cares about the integrity of the American media should read this book. Greg Mitchell asks tough questions about the Iraq war that should have been asked long ago, in a poignant, patriotic, and thoughtful dissection of our war in Iraq. Mitchell names names and places blame on those who've blundered. Examining the most complex issue of our time, he connects the dots like no one else has. --Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and author of Chasing Ghosts

As Keith Olbermann reminds us every weeknight, it's been some 1,750 days and counting since George Bush crowed, Mission accomplished! Editor & Publisher editor Mitchell further rubs Bush's nose in it, and commemorates other erroneous nabobs as well.This book gathers some five years' worth of Mitchell's media-watchdog opinion pieces from that august journal, consistent in their opposition to the Iraq misadventure and prescient in their having assumed from the first that Bush would indeed invade: as early as October 7, 2002, Editor & Publisher was opening one story with 'As the United States prepares to invade Iraq Mitchell was one of the first to question New York Times reporter Judith Miller's coziness with the administration and its claims through her of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's bunkers. He was also quick to criticize MSNBC news host Chris Matthews's assertion, on that very day of Bush's mission-accomplished declaration, He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Matthews, one hopes, is reminded of that statement daily, and one hopes that the New York Times reporters who assured readers that the troops were coming home in May 2003 are reminded of their wrong call as well. The problem is one of complacency and complicity. Mitchell quotes Washington Post correspondent and Colin Powell biographer Karen DeYoung as having observed, quite rightly, We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power. True, Mitchell suggests, but that's not the way it's supposed to be. Visiting such points on the timeline as the Pat Tillman death-by-friendly-fire coverup, the Miller affair (and her subsequent buyout) and the suicides of several American soldiers in protest against corruption, Mitchell charts how disastrously wrongheaded the war has been from the start, and how numerous and various the wrongheaded have been.A lucid chronology of error, worthy of shelving alongside the best of the Iraq books to date. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Greg Mitchell is the editor of Editor & Publisher, the journal of the newspaper business which has won several major awards for its coverage of Iraq and the media. He has written eight books, including Hiroshima in America (with Robert Jay Lifton) and T he Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics, and his articles have appeared in dozens of leading newspapers and magazines. He lives in the New York City area. Joseph L. Galloway is one of the most respected war correspondents of our time and currently writes a syndicated column on military affairs. He co-authored the bestselling We Were Soldiers Once...and Young and the forthcoming We Are Soldiers Still. He was awarded a Bronze Star for valor in Vietnam.

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