Are journalists themselves responsible for the “doubts” and “haunting spectre of quagmire” that they report on as lurking about the war? William Saletan at Slate thinks so.
The reason such questions “bubble around” is that reporters raise and repeat them in a self-escalating cycle. Here’s how it works. On Friday, a reporter tells an admiral at a Pentagon briefing, “There is a growing chorus now—it’s still a small chorus, but it’s getting louder—of critics who are saying that the United States appears to be bogged down.” On Saturday, under the headline “New Sense of Impatience Is Emerging,” the Los Angeles Times cites the “bogged down” question as evidence that doubts have “crystallized” as “the military faces increasingly skeptical questions.” On Sunday, ABC’s Cokie Roberts opens her interview with Rumsfeld by noting, “There’ve been stories over the weekend that give the perception that this war after three weeks is not going very well.”
Saletan suggests that lack of news of tremendous success can only be hyped by the media as failure — a self-fulfilling prophecy when it then turns into stories about American citizenry doubting whether the war can be won after all the “setbacks” endured.
(Also via InstaPundit)