1069 Duration: 5.31 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
Why don't you introduce yourself and the newspaper you work for.
1070 Duration: 4.2 seconds
Julian Borger:
I'm Julian Borger. I'm the U.S. Bureau Chief for The Guardian newspaper.
1071 Duration: 14.75 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
Okay. And so when you look at the buildup to the war in Iraq -- How would you distinguish coverage that you would see from the United Kingdom versus what you saw here in the United States?
1072 Duration: 6.17 seconds
Julian Borger:
I think the coverage in the British Press was far more aggressive than in the US.
1073 Duration: 8.84 seconds
Julian Borger:
The US coverage tended to be quite reverential towards the administration in a way the British press wasn't.
1074 Duration: 19.12 seconds
Julian Borger:
And that's a basic cultural difference in the newspaper worlds and the media worlds in the two countries. And that applied very much so to the buildup to the Iraq war -- and the issue of evidence for WMD -- and evidence of links between Baghdad and al Qaeda.
1075 Duration: 10.64 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
And what do you attribute -- Why are there differences between the press in the United Kingdom versus here in the United States?
1076 Duration: 2.6 seconds
Julian Borger:
I see them as cultural differences, really. There --
1077 Duration: 7.51 seconds
Julian Borger:
In Britain, the newspaper world -- and maybe the public at large -- is far more cynical about government.
1078 Duration: 19.82 seconds
Julian Borger:
I think to a certain extent, there's a way in which American reporters -- reflecting an American population -- still believes in some way that if the information comes from the administration -- or from an administration agency -- then it has inherent worth.
1079 Duration: 5.31 seconds
Julian Borger:
It may not be true, but there is reason to believe it is true. In a way, that's turned on its head in Britain.
1080 Duration: 17.28 seconds
Julian Borger:
There's a deep-seated distrust of what you're being told by the government -- what you've been told by government agencies. And a much deeper-seated instinct to aggressively go out and find out if it's true.
1081 Duration: 23.69 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
Another difference I see between the United Kingdom and the United States is that they have more parties -- they have more than a two-party system. Do you see that that adds to the debate a little bit more -- and adds more viewpoints? [Hard to say -- Because in a way in both countries, in the US -- ] Okay, I'm sorry. I'm not going to be including my questions -- So if you can incorporate the -
1082 Duration: 4.57 seconds
Julian Borger:
Hard to say whether the political structure had much of an impact.
1083 Duration: 19.02 seconds
Julian Borger:
In both countries, in Britain and the US, you had a principal opposition party that was broadly, broadly supportive of going to war -- Or at least of putting a lot of pressure on Saddam Hussein up to the point of war -- the Tories in Britain and the Democrats here.
1084 Duration: 6.47 seconds
Julian Borger:
So the political structure wasn't really a function. There were those --
1085 Duration: 10.74 seconds
Julian Borger:
Another sort of cultural difference in the media -- or maybe a structural difference in the relationship -- the power balance between the media and the government. And that's completely different in Britain.
1086 Duration: 20.05 seconds
Julian Borger:
In Britain, the power balance between the press -- the national press and the government is very much more weighted towards the national press than it is here. There's much more dependence among American correspondents for access than there is in Britain --
1087 Duration: 15.78 seconds
Julian Borger:
The British newspapers -- national newspapers can take the risk of really launching an aggressive attack on the government knowing that sooner or later, the government has to come back and talk to them again. And that it's in the interest of the government to come back and talk to that newspaper again.
1088 Duration: 11.01 seconds
Julian Borger:
In the US, among correspondents on different beats -- in the Pentagon or the White House or whatever agency / department -- there's a fear of being frozen out.
1089 Duration: 8.78 seconds
Julian Borger:
And I think that fear does form a -- in the background, it has to play a role.
1090 Duration: 10.54 seconds
Julian Borger:
And that fear is always an inhibiting factor on the reporting of journalists who are assigned those particular beats.
1091 Duration: 14.65 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
So during the buildup to the war in Iraq -- At what point did you see that -- Did you have some skepticism towards the case that was being made with weapons of mass destruction?
1092 Duration: 9.01 seconds
Julian Borger:
I suppose I became most skeptical at the time of the famous aluminum tubes.
1093 Duration: 20.95 seconds
Julian Borger:
And we did a story looking at the various claims made by the administration -- I think it was at the time of the Cincinnati speech in October 2002. And there had been a string of claims in that the aluminum tubes were supposed to be used for centrifuges, and the drone aircraft, and so on.
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