2831 Duration: 4.7 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, and what you do here at Harper's.
2832 Duration: 6.47 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
John R. MacArthur -- or I go by Rick -- and I'm publisher of Harper's Magazine.
2833 Duration: 15.42 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
And, what is Harper's Magazine? How would you describe it? [Well, it's an independent literary and political --] Oh, I'm sorry. I'm going to be editing out my questions, so…
2834 Duration: 27.73 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
Harper's Magazine is an independent, monthly literary magazine that does politics. More politics lately than usual because of the Bush administration. And it's the oldest monthly in America. It's founded in 1850, and is a virtual encyclopedia of American culture if you go back to 1850. And it's thriving under the current administration.
2835 Duration: 9.98 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
Can you describe your characterization and evaluation of how the mainstream news media performed in general leading up to the war in Iraq?
2836 Duration: 8.17 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
Oh -- Well, the mainstream media sold out the country. It went along for the ride with the Bush propaganda campaign. --
2837 Duration: 21.79 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
It's probably the worst collaboration I've seen between the mainstream media and political power -- or the current regime -- or the incumbent president since John F. Kennedy, and the early stages of Vietnam.
2838 Duration: 13.55 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
And even then, there was more critical reporting once we were into Vietnam. There wasn't much criticism of the premise. And certainly no one tried to stop the sending of military advisors. But --
2839 Duration: 13.05 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
But in terms of swallowing, regurgitating, amplifying the Bush administration propaganda, the big media -- the mainstream media were at their worst in a long time.
2840 Duration: 5.61 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
And, specifically, can you talk to the role that the New York Times played?
2842 Duration: 12.35 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
The New York Times led the charge in -- or led the disinformation campaign in terms of what Saddam Hussein actually possessed, in terms of weapons.
2843 Duration: 22.09 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
People have forgotten already that the term "Weapons of Mass Destruction" -- which is a non -- it means nothing. It's one of those meaningless phrases that turns into media-speak -- was a deliberate attempt to obscure -- or conflate, rather, the different kinds of weapons that we were talking about.
2845 Duration: 10.58 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
The main threat that the Bush administration propagandists were selling to get the Congress to vote for war authorization, was an atomic bomb threat, a nuclear weapons threat.
2846 Duration: 9.81 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
And the Times contributed mightily to that -- to the belief, the popular belief, that Saddam was on the verge of getting nuclear weapons.
2847 Duration: 21.15 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
Most importantly, with their stories early on about the aluminum tubes -- or the attempted purchase of aluminum tubes by the Iraqis. Aluminum tubes were intended for conventional rockets, as it turned out, but the Times made it sound like they were going straight into a sophisticated bomb-making -- A-bomb-making process.
2849 Duration: 11.91 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
If you waited too long too look for proof or for corroboration, the smoking gun that you're looking for could turn into a mushroom cloud.
2850 Duration: 21.32 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
And so they went way over the line into promoting the scare stories. And they legitimized the scare stories. The media still follows the New York Times pretty slavishly -- not so much any more, I hope -- but back in September / October 2002, their contribution to the war fever was immeasurable.
2851 Duration: 9.64 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
Can you talk a little bit about Judith Miller inserting some commentary into some of her pieces?
2852 Duration: 18.45 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
Judith Miller and Michael Gordon wrote the first big story on September 8th about the aluminum tubes. And they clearly placed the confrontation, the blame for the confrontation -- the coming confrontation between the United States and Iraq, on Saddam Hussein.
2854 Duration: 10.94 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
His 'mad pursuit of atomic weaponry' had pushed the confrontation to the point where America was considering invading and disarming him.
2856 Duration: 16.98 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
Actually, Saddam Hussein was pretty much flat on his back, in terms of his potential for doing harm to anybody outside of Iraq. He was still able to hurt people inside Iraq, but in terms of aggressive, offensive potential, it was nil.
2858 Duration: 12.18 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
As it turns out, even the more plausible accusation that he was hiding chemical weapons, left over from the Iran-Iraq War, turned out to be phony -- turned out to be false.
2859 Duration: 13.61 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
And he didn't have anything. And his army had already proven itself to be quite incompetent in the first Gulf War, easily knocked out of Kuwait in a matter, of what? three days. I mean, after bombing for six weeks.
2861 Duration: 6.94 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
Where was the threat? It was in the minds of the reporters, editors of the New York Times, the Washington Post. PBS also.
2862 Duration: 3.9 seconds
John R. MacArthur:
The Frontline program, did some bad reporting on this.
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