Interview with Susan Moeller, University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism, Associate Professor

July 19th, 2004
Transcription by Ben Tupper

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Alright. So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, and what you do here at University of Maryland.
SUSAN MOELLER: My name is Susan Moeller. I'm a professor here -- Came about three years ago, right before September 11th. And it's an interesting time to be here.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. And I'm not actually going to be including my question, and so just --
MOELLER: Oh, you want this actually for the tape?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Well, yeah. Just for -- When you say "here" -- Instead of saying "here" -- "University of Maryland." So I may stop you occasionally to repeat it.
MOELLER: Sure. Okay. That's fine.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So go ahead and just do that again.
MOELLER: My name is Susan Moeller. I'm a professor here at University of Maryland. Been here since September 2001 -- more or less since the 9/11 bombings and plane crashes. And it's been an interesting time to be here.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Talk a little bit about your study and the genesis of why you've looked at some of these time periods leading up to the war and before and after.
MOELLER: My background is in media and international affairs. And so -- I'm particularly interested in how the media covers international crises. And there was a consortium of groups that was interested particularly in how the media, both print and broadcast, were covering weapons of mass destruction -- or WMD. And so they came to me, and asked whether I could figure out more than an anecdotal way, whether the coverage had been as bad actually as they thought it was. They thought there was some real, not only lack of balance in the coverage -- political balance -- But because a lot of these people coming to me were public policy folks and scientists, they were concerned that there was a conflation of what actually constituted weapons of mass destruction. And that's where the science of it wasn't being correctly represented. And they also thought that perhaps there were stories that were very grossly overcovered and stories that were undercovered.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And what did you see was dictating what the media was covering and not covering?
MOELLER: Well, there's a couple of background elements to the coverage. One is just how the media covers international affairs in general. And the key to the answer is "They cover them poorly." Usually, international affairs is covered as sort of a big-story coverage. There's a lot of attention put maybe one maybe two issues, and that's about it. And that big story gets a lot of attention, but mostly in a breaking news way. There tends not to be a lot of depth or breadth or context. It's more what's happening right now. And usually that big story, whatever it may be, takes all the oxygen -- and it uses up all the oxygen in the newsroom. And so there's not a lot of coverage of a lot of countries in the world. We talk in my class about something called the "news net", which is, if you put little flags in a globe around the world -- those flags representing the countries where the news media covered -- you'd see that the net was not well-distributed. There'd be a lot of little flags in the Middle East, for example, or in Western Europe, but much of Africa, South America, and lots of Asia wouldn't have no flags at all. So -- Part of the coverage of WMD had to do with just "How does the media cover international affairs in general?" And it usually only covers international affairs when there's a crisis. And then it's responding to the crisis. And usually not responding from a breadth of knowledge. The other element is that WMD crosses a lot of what we call in the news -- in the journalism business we call "beats." So a beat is like, you're covering the State Department, or you're covering the White House, you're covering healthcare or education. Weapons of Mass Destruction not only would be a White House beat or a Pentagon beat or a State Department beat, but would also be a Science & Technology beat, would also be an Intelligence and National Security beat. And there aren't a lot of reporters, either in print or broadcast, who have a Rolodex that includes people from all of the different categories. They tend to know their own turf very well, but not be able to move amongst all of those. And so that was a problem was that you would have reporters who would be covering the politics of a WMD crisis, but couldn't tell you what the science of it. And so what that meant was -- That just in general, there was a lot of stenographic reporting of what they heard, of what politicians were saying in Senate testimony for example.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so when you have this political conflation of WMD, can you make distinctions that should have been made chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons?
MOELLER: Yeah. There was often in the coverage -- And again, I'm using "coverage" kind of very broadly. The media is not monolithic, and there were some media outlets that did a better job than others. But generally, there -- In the coverage, broadly, there was a conflation among chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. And not only amongst those, but among civilian programs and military programs. Civilian programs being for power -- you know, energy to run your home. And there were not sufficient distinctions made in the reportage, for example, in places like Iraq -- or Iran rather -- For example, in the coverage, there was not a lot of distinction made in a place like Iran between civilian nuclear efforts and potential military nuclear programs. So that was one problem. Another problem was the problem of not making distinctions between chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. And within those three categories of not making distinction in size or risk, for example, in any of those three categories. You can talk about battlefield weapons, which are perhaps a potential risk to a fairly small group of people -- a horrible risk, but potential risk in a very discreet area -- in a battlefield, for example -- versus a weapon that has the capability to move beyond its immediate vicinity into a larger -- into a larger realm. And often what we saw in the WMB -- And often what we saw in the WMD discussion was this -- sort of a tendency to go toward the apocalyptic. A tendency to talk about WMD as if they were always Dr. Strangelovian, you know, threatening the world -- certainly threatening the United States.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And to what degree -- It seems like a legitimate thing within -- Journalism has no idea of the extent of the threat. Or do they? Do they have a -- Should they make distinctions of the actual chances of being passed to terrorists. I think you mentioned that someone in your study, the actual chance of WMD being passed to a terrorist to be delivered.
MOELLER: Yeah another, I think, problem in the coverage -- Again just in general about WMD, and particularly post 9/11 -- was the conflation between talking about terrorism and talking about -- One of the problems, post 9/11 in the coverage of WMD was a conflation between acts of terrorism and acquisition or use of WMD. They were talked about as if they were the same thing, although to date there has not been a terrorist act that has uses -- that has used -- But to date there has not been a terrorist act that has used weapons of mass destruction that have been truly mass destruction. I mean, the only occasion perhaps is the sarin episode on Japanese subways.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess, people on the right if they would hear that, they'd say, "Just because it happened doesn't mean that it will."
MOELLER: Well, sure. There is the risk that terrorists -- or people often talk about rogue states -- getting a hold of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons and the threat that that poses. But what I'm talking about is, in a news story, the need to make it clear that the highest risk is actually not the most likely risk. If you talk to the scientific community, and I'm not a scientist, but if you talk to the scientific community, most of them will talk about the real threat being things like bio-security, or fissile controls, or what's going on with nuclear controls in Russia and so forth. They're not talking about al Qaeda. There not talking about Hamas.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So do you see the agenda being set by the White House then -- with the journalists and what they're covering?
MOELLER: Well, what was very interesting in the study I did on the media coverage of WMD, was that it was not just a study of Iraq. It was a study of three time periods, 1998, 2002, and 2003. And that gave us both the Clinton and Bush administrations, and gave us three different regions of the world that were in crisis because of WMD. South Asia, India and Pakistan and their nuclear tests in 1998, North Korea in the Fall of 2002. And then preeminently, Iraq in the Spring of 2003. And what we saw was pre-9/11, so back in 1998, the media made very clear distinctions between rogue states -- or terrorists using their own various methods to capture attention -- and weapons of mass destruction. They were not seen as the same. Occasionally there was a list of potential threats. And terrorism was distinguished from use of weapons of mass destruction -- either chemical, biological, or nuclear. When you move to the 9/11 period and after, you're of course now in the Bush administration. And one of the things that comes out very clearly post-9/11 was how the media were queuing off the President's assessment of risk. The President would come out in a speech and say, you know, 'Saddam Hussein has' -- he would say in effect -- 'weapons of mass destruction. We need to fear these. This is a risk, not only in the theater, but to us Americans.' And the reporters would report those speeches, and they would lead with the President's assessment of the risk. And very rarely, would there be as prominently any kinds of caveats about that. Interestingly at the same time frame, there were caveats expressed about North Korea. In 2002, for example -- the Fall of 2002, in the build-up to the war in Iraq, the President was making his case for why the United States needed to go to war. At the same time we're having this crisis with North Korea about their coming clean with their nuclear program. And the media as it reported on North Korea, was very careful to talk about shaky intelligence, and what we know and what we don't know. And the President would make a statement, and they would be very conscientious about how they would represent what the President was saying. But when it came to Iraq, they lost that journalistic distance, and they reported stenographically.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. And so -- When you look at the total time period -- build-up starting like maybe back in August '02 up until March of '03 -- How would you evaluate the performance of the print and television media during that time period?
MOELLER: I think from August to March -- I think from August 2002 -- when we first starting getting the arguments from the President -- to March 2003, the media coverage was really, particularly as reported from Washington, was very poor. What we tended to get was very stenographic coverage from both the print and the broadcast media. We had very few alternative sources that we heard from -- very few alternative voices. And certainly the ones we did were not mentioned prominently. There were relatively very few articles or stories that challenged the President's statements. And those that did tended to be -- particularly in the newspapers -- tended to be buried -- you know, back on page A13 under the lingerie ads or something like that. So -- The impression that was given during that whole point was "Saddam is a threat. Saddam harbors terrorists. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. We need to fear Saddam." And that master narrative, which was disseminated by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and others, was swallowed and swallowed pretty whole. As I said before, there were some exceptions. There were a few reporters, sort of lone voices crying in the wilderness -- a couple of people at the Washington Post, for example, Dana Milbank preeminent among them -- a few at Knight Ridder, Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel, and others. But for the most part, even at the prominent news outlets, they really dropped the ball.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And what do you attribute that to? Why? Is it -- What are some of the factors that caused the media to drop the ball?
MOELLER: I think one of the reasons why media did so poorly in covering -- I think one of the reasons why media did so poorly in critically covering the WMD issue was that they were on this sort of patriotic bounce off of 9/11. There still was a sense that "You don't challenge the emperor for having no clothes. You just go along with it." And to be fair, it wasn't so clear that the emperor didn't have any clothes. I mean, the intelligence -- covering intelligence is very difficult. I mean, clearly this was an intelligence story. It's hard to get people -- not only on the record -- but hard to get people at all outside the administration who knew much about it. But there were people who did. There were sources who could have been gone to, preeminently among them the military in the theater. There also were scientists and others who could have evaluated some of the details that were coming down -- whether it was the aluminum tubes or with the yellow cake or whatever it might have been. There were other people that could have been talked to. So part of it was just going to the usual sources, just listening to the White House preeminently. Part of it was covering it as a political story and not as a -- Part of it was covering it as a political story, and not covering it as Science or Technology story -- or even a military story. And when they cover it as a political story, they bought into the President's line. The President was still riding high on his popularity. I guess those are the main reasons.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And when you look at the role of Congress -- How do you kind of evaluate the role of Congress? And since they, during the --
MOELLER: Yeah. I think another problem that the media had was, the media likes -- One of the problems the media had -- One of the problems the US media has is that it likes to cover stories that are controversial through a sort of "He Said / She Said" kind of coverage. And -- One of the problems in covering the weapons of mass destruction debate was there were not in this -- sort of August 2002 to March 2003 period -- there were not a lot of prominent dissenting voices. There were not the Democrats in Congress who were speaking up and saying, "What's going on here?" or "Should we challenge this?" or "Maybe we should be listening to Hans Blix" or "Maybe we should be talking to a wider range of people." So without those go-to folks in Congress, the media didn't really have that -- that classic alternative voice that it's used to. It was a problem for print, but it was particularly a problem for broadcast, which typically doesn't have the kind of deadlines or resources or time to put into a story that print does. And so, the easy back-and-forth that it gets from the White House to Congress it just really wasn't there.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Now there were lone voices in Congress, but was it that there just wasn't enough of a critical mass after the Congressional vote?
MOELLER: Yeah, there really -- In Congress, there were some lone voices. Robert Byrd, for example, of West Virginia, gave a ringing speech, for example, on the floor. There were a few others who were sort of the lone voices crying in the wilderness. But there never was that critical mass of opposition -- or even questioning of the President's stance. And even within the editorial boards or within the producers within the news outlets themselves, there wasn't this sense that, "Oh, the President's wrong." People accepted the fact that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. They accepted that as an argument. They did not challenge those assumptions. I mean, one of the key problems was even when later on toward the Spring, starting in January and February and then accelerating in March, when the media did begin to challenge the President's assumptions. They did begin to challenge the spin coming from the White House. They were looking more critically at Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation before the UN, and so on. There was still not a -- [Interruption] -- Beginning in January/February/March 2003, when the media began to challenge the spin and challenge some of the President's assumptions, what they never really did was challenge the way the President set up the news budget -- Well, that's not right. It's not the news budget...
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: What challenge are you talking about?

MOELLER: Yeah. It was -- Talking that they were challenging the -- even when they challenged the spin, they didn't challenge the --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Framing?
MOELLER: Well, it's sort of the hierarchy of what's important -- that the President's agenda of what he put on as --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: The priorities?
MOELLER: -- the priorities. I guess, what -- Starting in the Spring of 2002 -- Starting in the Spring -- Starting in the Spring of 2003 -- in January, February, March of 2003 -- when the press began to question the President's assumptions, began look hard at the spin from the White House, you still never had the media taking a hard look at what the President was putting on the agenda. Why are we looking at Iraq? Why is Iraq on the agenda in terms of terrorism? In terms of WMD? Should there be other countries that are on there? That was a problem.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay.
MOELLER: It really wasn't what I wanted to say. What's that -- Where did I put it in here? [Looking into papers] Go ahead. What's the question you wanted to ask?

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: The -- When you look at some of the other causes. Talk about the economics of it. When I hear Bill Plante talk to Martha Joint Kumar, he's saying that 'There's not a lot of researchers that are left in news organizations.' And so -- Do you see a tendency to only cover events? And when have these issues that are over time, that you kind of just -- you know, the big questions of "Why are we even going into Iraq?" So talk about maybe some of the other --
MOELLER: The problems with the news media, just in general?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Right.
MOELLER: Okay. Yeah. I'm still looking for this. Somewhere I state it 'brilliantly.' Well, I'll come up with it in a sec. Does this reflect white on me any differently? I should put it down.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: No, we can't see it...
MOELLER: You sure it's not reflecting white up?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: No.
MOELLER: This is a draft. I couldn't find my hard copy. Yeah. I'll do that. Ah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So why don't you finish this thought here?
MOELLER: Yeah. Still not exactly right.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Hold on. Just get settled in. Alright.
MOELLER: Starting in 2003 -- in January, February, March 2003 -- when the media were beginning to challenge the spin coming from the White House, they still never really challenged the President's prioritization of events. How the President framed the news. How he framed the stories coming from Iraq. And that was a real problem. Because even when they said, 'Is he right? Or is he wrong?' -- I'm still not getting this right. Whatever. We'll come back to it. Or it's lost in the --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Well, I think one thing that I see is that after the Congressional vote in October, you have all this information from the UN, the inspectors -- you know, the substance of what they were actually reporting, or the substance of the actual debate was only covered in terms of "When are going to go to war?" after the Congressional resolution.
MOELLER: Right.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Do you see -- kind of like a "Countdown Towards War," and only -- not covering the substance of what was going on?
MOELLER: Yeah, I think after -- After October 2002, after the debate in Congress, there really was this countdown towards the war. There really was this, "How many days is it going to take for Saddam to reply?" And really were looking at -- The media were looking at the events in Iraq as breaking news. And were not -- most of them -- stepping back and saying, "Ah, let's begin to still challenge " -- They were not stepping back and really saying, "Oh, let's begin to challenge those assumptions." There were a few. But the problem is -- In so many newsrooms -- and this is particularly a problem of television, but even true of print -- is that there just aren't the resources there for much enterprise reporting, much investigative reporting. It's the rare journalist who has a decade or two or more of experience in this area, who has a deep list of sources to go to, and who really has -- not only the sources, but has the self-confidence to say, "You know. This doesn't sound right to me." And there really only were a few places that were doing any kind of challenging of the White House's message at all.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I see that there was some enterprising reporting, but the enterprising reporting had to do with, "When was the war going to start?" The war plans, the mobilizations -- And can you speak to -- Did you see the patterns of what enterprising reporting was there?
MOELLER: Well, there was -- At some point the reporting on -- At some point the reporting on WMD shifted. It shifted from a Washington story to an Iraq story. And it shifted from the Washington bureaus at the State Department or the White House or the Pentagon, to the bureaus in Iraq, the bureaus in Baghdad or elsewhere. Partly, when that shift occurred, it shifted from a political story to a military story of "When the war is going to start." And "Are we going to get embedded?" And "Are we going to get embedded in the right places?" And that whole sort of tussle for turf played out. And what it meant was that was there was sort of this acceptance of the way the war -- or the potential war at that point was being played out. And, well -- There was an acceptance of the way the potential war was being sold. And there was a withdrawal from challenging the assumptions of the war, and just a sort of -- an engagement with "When's it going to happen? Who's going to be where? How many American dead are there going to be? Is it going to be finished just with air bombing? Are they going to use the chemical weapons or the biological weapons or the nuclear weapons against us? How much do we have to fear?" And of course, the other question -- the corollary question was, "Is there going to be a concomitant terrorist attack in the United States at the same time? Do we back in the United States need to fear too?"

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And from your looking at all of this time period and afterwards, from your sense -- Why did the United States go to war in Iraq?
MOELLER: The United States went to war with Iraq, because the United States bought what the President said. They bought --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Well, I mean from the administration point of view -- Why did the administration go to war in Iraq?
MOELLER: Well, the administration said they went to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that he had used them before in 1988 against the Kurds, and was likely to strike again. He was not only was he a regional threat, but he was a global threat because his regime harbored terrorists. And harbored terrorists -- including al Qaeda -- who had been responsible for the 9/11. So this really -- It really was this sort of "A + B = C" logic to it. And -- What is tragic is that the media preeminently -- What is tragic is the media bought that. The media didn't challenge that linkage of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction. They belatedly came to challenge the linkage of Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda. But they never really took on the question of "Did Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction?" And even if so, "How much of a threat were they beyond the borders of Iraq itself?"

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so when you look at it in hindsight, and all the evidence that's come about since about their justifications that they were selling to the American public -- Do you see that there were ulterior motives? Or is -- Was that the real case? Did they buy in -- Do you sincerely believe that the administration believed all the justifications they were using? Or was that just a pretext?
MOELLER: Did the administration believe it? Well, I don't have any insider knowledge, but it seems that all of the books that have come out, and all of the now belated investigation suggests that the Bush administration had come in to the White House wanting to go to war with Iraq. And effectively, 9/11 and WMD was the Trojan Horse that allowed them to do that. I think the problem with the media was -- I don't think there was conspiracy on the part of the media to back the President. I think what there was -- was still this honeymoon period post-9/11, where the media -- and much of the country, including the Democrats -- were supported the President in whatever he felt was appropriate to do in his so-called fight against terrorism. And that he chose to fight the war against terrorism in Iraq rather than continue a more aggressive assault against al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Northwest Pakistan. You know, that was seen as, you know, his bailiwick. And it was hard to get at the intelligence to know any differently for the media.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: If there are these reports out there that it was on their agenda when they first came in, and they used these reasons, and then those reasons fall apart -- Is it the job of the media to try to figure out what those real reasons were back in 2001 or 2002?
MOELLER: Well, there's only so much that I think the media could have done in 2002. I do think it was unknowable -- or at least all evidence seems to point that it was unknowable to know that Saddam Hussein effectively had no weapons of mass destruction at all -- no effective chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. That was unknowable. But what was very possible was to bring more sources into the dialogue. Sources that would have challenged some of the intelligence that was coming out. What also was possible was just to challenge what the President's agenda was in going into Iraq. Was it truly to fight terrorism? In particularly, the terrorism as headlined by al Qaeda? Was it truly because the Iraqi WMD posed such a grave threat? Or was there really more of a political agenda?

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And I would argue that it may have not been knowable in October of 2002, but by January 27th when Hans Blix made his presentation, he starts to crack a lot of -- you know, he gives some evidence that Saddam isn't fully cooperating, but at the same time they're making progress. And then by March 7th, when ElBaradei comes out and says, 'These aluminum tubes aren't for nuclear weapons. There's no nuclear weapons program.' And then -- But it seems like there's an Americanization of the issue. It's not really covered at all -- the substance of any of this evidence. So it wasn't -- The people within -- around the world, but also within the anti-war movement was clearly saying -- you know, you had Scott Ritter, "There's no weapons of mass destruction." There's people out there saying this. And there's declassified documents from the CIA from the Gulf War syndrome released that were saying there was questions about this. So, I mean -- Don't you think that -- there was something that happened that the US media was completely ignoring a lot of this evidence that was coming out?
MOELLER: There were stories in the US media beginning in 2003 on what Hans Blix was saying, on what Mohamed ElBaradei was saying and what others were saying, but they were buried. Particularly television didn't go to the UN -- didn't go the international organizations and say, "Let's hear your side of the story." They really were just putting on, and fronting just the administrations side. That was a really significant problem. Because those other voices were saying, "I don't think there are weapons of mass destruction here." And -- Part of the reasons, I think, the media -- Part of the reasons, I think, the US media didn't go to those international organizations is it -- it very much is a chauvinistic medium. It prioritizes American voices. It prioritizes American policies. It prioritizes American diplomatic efforts. And the only time that you get, sort of, the international perspective is when -- for example, in the case of France -- when they are in direct opposition to the United States -- when it's -- you can kind of posit it as a -- "The good guys -- the United States -- are saying this. And the bad guys -- France -- are saying that." Getting a sort of plethora of voices out there saying a plethora of things is just not done for the most part, particularly in broadcasting.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so when you have a "He Said/She Said" style of objectivity, and the Democrats and Republicans agree, can the press fill that void?
MOELLER: One would like to think that when you have a -- One would like to think that when you have a unanimity of opinion between the Democrats and Republicans as we saw in the build-up to the war, that even so the press -- the media could step in and say, "Ah, you know, I think there are voices out there, other perspectives. There's an anti-war movement. There are international organizations. There's international voices of other kinds that are speaking out." They should be able to put those up front. And not just on the editorial pages or in columns, but on the front pages, at the top of the news on television, on radio. And that just wasn't happening.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And do you -- So do you pin a lot of blame on more the editors than the reporters then, leading up to the war in Iraq? And was there sort of a pack mentality -- a conformity? Or is there a sense that you can't go too far out above like what everyone else is saying?
MOELLER: Yeah . I think in covering weapons of mass destruction, in covering the build up to Iraq, there's the same problem that you always have in the media's coverage of international affairs, which is -- The reporters in the field often get it right. Because after all, they're in the field. They're talking to people. Reporters in Iraq -- or in the Middle East -- they were trying to get stories in play, and a lot of them were being ignored by the home office or the newsrooms back in New York and Washington. It really was, in many ways, the editors or producers who were the obstructionist ones -- who were deciding, "Oh, no. This is not a front-page piece. This is a back-of-the-book. This is a inside-the-news piece -- or not-a-piece-at-all." There were challenges, but they just -- they never surfaced in any prominent way.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And are they trying to maintain friendly relationships with their access with their sources? Are they trying to be more sensational or profitable? Or what are some of the other factors, you think, why these editors were making these types of decisions?
MOELLER: Well, sometimes reporters pull their punches because they want to keep in with a particular source -- whether the source is the White House or whether the source is an intelligence source. And so they may not be as critical as they may otherwise be. Sometimes their sources are downright wrong as we saw with Ahmed Chalabi, for example. And -- But I think that although there was a lot of sourcing problems, and some pulling of punches by reporters, that the more egregious problem in the media coverage really was how editors construed the story. Because if you looked at the editorial pages -- whether it's the New York Times, or the LA Times, or you were listening to what's going on in the newsrooms at ABC, or NBC, or CBS, or FOX, or CNN -- what was being said in those editorial meetings -- or the editorial pages was, "The President's right." And the caveats that were being expressed by the editors, and the publishers, and the producers were, "We shouldn't go it alone." It was more "Let's get the international consortium behind us as we did with Gulf War I. Let's not go it alone as sort of the lone cowboys." That was their hesitation. And so -- They were receptive to critical stories of the President in terms of the sort of "Lone-Ranger" type of issue. But they were less receptive to stores that challenged that master narrative, that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein is connected to al Qaeda, and so on.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And do you see a difference between how the foreign press, the United Kingdom press, covered this issue versus the United States press during this time period building up to the war in Iraq?
MOELLER: Yeah. The British media covered this quite differently, even though Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, was our preeminent ally in all of this. The British press really was much more critical going into the war. Now there really were a couple of reasons for that. One was, there was some outspoken opposition in Parliament that allowed the British press to have the "He Said / She Said" kind of dialogue that the lack of democratic opposition in the Senate and House really wasn't allowing the media in the United States to do. But part of it also was just a different type of media. Here in the United States, we sort of value this notion of objectivity in separating out news pages from editorial pages. And of course, even though there's no way of not having some kind of spin in news coverage, there still is this idea that news stories in the United States should be sort of, "Just the facts ma'am." Should lead with what we call in the newsroom sort of "inverted pyramid" -- the "Who? What? When?" -- you know, "What Happened?" And analysis if it comes, you know, comes in a separate story that's labeled "news analysis." In England, they're all conflated -- not only the Opinion pages and the Editorial pages, you get ranting and raving about the government's policies -- but you get that in news stories as well. And not only in the news stories of tabloids, but in the news stories of The Times or The Guardian or The Telegraph or The Independent. So -- There really was a greater use of sources by the British press. They listened more to the anti-war movement over there. The political opposition was able to get more coverage. And so, the British went into the war, I think, with some more knowledge than the Americans did.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And do you see that the beat reporting here is not asking the "Why?" -- or answering the "Why?" question? Or drawing conclusions as to why things are happening? Versus -- And that's seen as an analysis piece, so that's separate. Do you see that -- Can you come to conclusions, and adjudicate the facts and still be objective? Can you just say, "This person is right. And this person is wrong. Because 'here,' I've looked into it a little be, and here's some facts."?
MOELLER: For a long time -- For a long time, there's been a debate within the journalism profession about whether journalists can be advocates. And you have someone like Christiane Amanpour, who during the Bosnian war said, "Well of course, I have an opinion. I've looked at this war. I've looked at the Serbs and the Muslims. And said, 'Okay. Yeah. There's no perfect side, but one side is doing more harm than the other. So I'm casting my ballot. And I'm calling things that I see them, which is not just representing facts, but is telling you who I think is bad." And a lot of those journalists who take that stance say, "Well, you know" -- They give you the example of Nazi Germany. You know, if you were a German -- They give you a -- A lot of those journalists who take the advocacy role on give you the example of Nazi Germany. "If you were a journalist in 1930s or the 1940s, would you not call Hitler the criminal he was?" Or would you just stand back and say, "Well, Hitler says, 'This.' And FDR says, 'This.' And Churchill says, 'That.'"? But there's another sort of breed of journalists who say, "No, that's inappropriate. You don't do that." And certainly editors, particularly at some of the major news outlets, try not to analyze the news or the issues or the speakers. They try to sort of "Just give the facts ma'am." What happens though, needless to say, they're listening to someone. And usually what happens is they're listening to the administration. One of the things that's very interesting is on smaller stories -- stories that don't get a critical mass of coverage -- you're much more likely in the newspapers and on television -- when they make it television -- to get news / analysis mixed together. Partly because there's no obvious political agenda that the administration has articulated. And so in some ways, because you're only having a one-off story, it frees the media up to call it like they see it. But when there's coverage of the big story. And the big story -- The President has taken a political position on the big story, then everybody gets really skittish about challenging that received message. And you get this sort of church-and-state attempts at separating out news from opinion -- or news from analysis.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But what if there's a case where you can clearly when "He Said" is wrong, and that the facts show that they're wrong. Isn't it the job of journalists to say, "They're saying this. But it's flatly wrong"? -- especially in an age of public relations.
MOELLER: It's absolutely the jobs of journalists to call anyone out -- the President, whomever it might be -- when they perceive the President is saying something wrong. When they perceive the President is saying something wrong, they should be called on it. What happened during Iraq -- or in the build-up to Iraq, was the President would say something wrong, but it would still be the headline. "President Says Saddam Has Weapons of Mass Destruction." And maybe later in the article, or deep into the news story on television, there would be the caveat, "Other observers believe that" -- and they would say something that would be opposed to that. But they would still have the headline and the lead that would lead with the President's remarks. And in sort of the journalistic canon, it's accepted -- In the American journalistic canon, at least, it's accepted that if -- at some point you give the opposition, that it's okay to start with the most important speaker -- what the most important speaker has said, even though that might be wrong. A lot of the problems -- A lot of the problems with Iraq came because -- A lot of the problems with Iraq coverage came because the media adhered to this "classic inverted pyramid" -- What do you call it? Style -- A lot of the problems with Iraq occurred -- A lot of the problems with the Iraq coverage occurred because the media adhered to a "classic inverted pyramid style" where they prioritized what the most important person was saying. And what the most important person was saying was "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." And perhaps later in the story, they would come back to you and say, "Well, there are some people who may challenge that." But they still lead with that false assertion by the President. And what the media didn't take responsibility for -- until now -- is that by disseminating the President's messages -- by leading with the President statements that they were effectively disseminating the President's arguments as well, and they were making his case for him. They were effectively a megaphone for the President. There should have been equally prominent challenges to what he was saying.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And when you look at the issue of international law, you can go to international legal scholars and they would be able to say, "Well, in fact, you need a second resolution." Or "In fact, regime change is actually illegal under international law." And these were things that the administration was saying that completely, even to this day, still going unchallenged. So when you look at issues of international law, and the legitimacy of this war -- that's just something that's not on the radar screen of any journalists that I've really talked to. So why is international law -- is that completely being ignored in this kind of debate?
MOELLER: Yeah, international law was very poorly brought into the argument. And part of it was because the administration itself had marginalized the role that international law should play. Part of it was that you have a Republican element that is very uncomfortable -- to say the least -- with the UN -- or any international engagement in what they consider to be American domestic politics or national security issues. So that was part of the problem. But another part of the problem was -- Because Iraq was covered as a breaking news story -- it was covered as a political story, and WMD was covered as a political story, that -- that was what lead the news. There never really was -- I mean, the problem with -- The problem always with the big stories, and particularly the problem with big stories when you're talking about American troops, and -- or even Americans on the home front being at risk -- is that you never really have the second-day stories. The President every day was out there -- or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Powell or Rice -- was out there everyday with a new message. They dominated the news cycle. They never really allowed opposition voices to sort of get a word in. And it was very skillfull maneuvering on their part.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so how does a media -- that in some ways doesn't even recognize that this was happening -- How can they attack big ideas? How can they cover ideas such as, "Is this war -- Does it even make any sense? What's going to happen afterwards?" You know, how -- For the future -- Does there need to be a beat where people are looking at these types of things? Or how do you incorporate big questions and ideas that are not events?
MOELLER: Well, of course the problem was the media does know all this stuff. The media does know how it should cover stories. It knows that is should put more sources up front. It knows it should challenge the President's message. It knows that it should go to scientists and the military, not just listen to the Pentagon -- or the Department of Defense, for example, on weapons of mass destruction story. But it forgot. Or it got seduced by terrorism. You know, it got seduced by the potential risks. You know, you remember the anthrax story. And how newsrooms were targeted. When terrorism comes home to journalists -- and not just the journalists who were out in the field who just sort of expect personal threats -- but when it comes home to newsrooms in Washington and New York, you find those newsrooms a whole lot more willing to accept the President's agenda for dealing with the War on Terrorism. So what you saw here was really a buying into the President's logic, and therefore a lack of recognition that they were even keeping their hands off. Although -- In the study that I looked at, you could see that at the same moment that they were not challenging the President's assumptions or the intelligence on Iraq, they were challenging the President's assumptions and intelligence on North Korea. What was the difference? Well, the difference was while there was some potential talk for war with North Korea, that was really never at the top of the agenda. It was really not an issue -- or preeminent issue. Iraq was. And so -- That was the difference.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Do you see the economics of the situation playing any factor into that as well?
MOELLER: I think the economics of the media business have really made a difference. Two kinds of economics, one is -- The media mergers over the course of the 1980s means that there's a lot fewer voices out there. And with fewer voices out there, you just don't get the sort of diversity of opinion that you might have gotten 20-30 years ago. Although, I should say that some of the best reporting came out of Knight Ridder, which has papers and news outlets around the country. So that argument to some degree only goes so far in the specific instance of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. But there's another economic argument at play here too. And that's the -- There's another economic argument at play here too, and that's the 24/7 - "I've got to keep my viewers -- I've got to keep my subscribers attention going. I can't let them hit the remote. I can't let them choose another alternative news source." And so they lead with the risk. They lead with the apocalyptic threats. They lead with the scare tactics that were coming out of the White House. They went to the experts in the newsrooms who were willing to back up the administration claims. You didn't hear the anti-war protestors because they were challenging. You know, "Let's not go to war. Maybe things aren't as bad as we think."

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. And let me just see if there's anything else here. You mentioned a little bit, the language used frame the debate -- sensationalize or minimize. Can you talk a little bit about that?
MOELLER: One of the things that I think was very interesting about how the weapons of mass destruction debate played out was the language used to talk about it. The UN has a term called "blue speak," which is the word it uses for its jargon -- you know, talking about "peace keepers," for example. There's no "spies" in the UN, they're sort of "intelligence gatherers." There's no "divisions" or "battalions," they're "units," and so on. Well, we had in the United States a kind of "blue speak," a kind of euphemisms that were used. For example, during the buildup to Iraq in 2002 and 2003, there was at the same time an internal debate in Congress about putting more money into R&D for American nuclear weapons. And American nuclear weapons, for example, during that debate as enunciated by Congress -- or enunciated by the White House was always talked about as "deterrence." Whereas in looking at nuclear weapons overseas -- particularly Iraq or Iran or North Korea, you know, the evil states -- they were always talked about as "offensive weapons." Israel's nuclear armaments were also talked about as "deterrents." So you had this use of language to frame -- you know, are these "Weapons of Mass Destruction?" In other words, you know, drum roll please, "We need to worry." "These are 'weapons' to fear." Or "Do we really have 'nuclear deterrence' to keep us safe in case some bad guys come over and threaten us. In which case, things are okay. And this is what we need to do." There are other kinds of language -- I'm trying to think of other language -- Questions -- I'm blanking --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Bunker busters?
MOELLER: Ah, yeah. What do I want to say about those though? The mini-nukes and bunker busters. When the administration was talking -- When the administration and Congressional leaders were talking about the American armaments, very often they talked about them in very cozy terms. They talked about "bunker busters" and "mini-nukes," which almost sounds like something from an Austin Powers movie. Something that clearly has a very limited function, and that almost seems [unintelligible]. And yet those kinds of distinctions about scale and size and power of nuclear weaponry were typically not discussed when talking about the nuclear weapons programs of other countries. There always was more of a doomsday language that was used in reference to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.