Harold Evans: Washington Times "may be partly to blame" for 9/11

[Taxloss]

From the UK Press Gazette, reporting a speech by Harold Evans, possibly the most distinguished living figure in UK print journalism (and husband of Tina Brown). I originally posted this in E&OA, but it's such an extraordinary attack on the American media, and so mysteriously under-reported (I wonder why) that I thought it merited a GD mention as well.

Harold Evans says press is partly to blame for 9/11

Urging the media to be more responsible in its reporting of the war on terror, Sir Harold Evans said The Washington Times could be held partly to blame for the 9/11 attacks.

At a session of the International Press Institute world congress in Edinburgh, entitled "Journalism Under Pressure — Reporting Terrorism", the former Times and Sunday Times editor said that a "culture of complaint" had grown up in which the fundamental issues were obscured.

...

He cited the example of how all the major news organisations in the United States ignored an authoritative report from the US National Security Commission — prior to 9/11 — which revealed widespread anti-Americanism and warned that, as a consequence, large numbers of Americans would die on home soil.

Evans added that it was conceivable 3,000 people died on 9/11 because right-wing newspaper The Washington Times leaked information that the CIA had found a way to listen in to Osama bin Laden's satellite telephone calls.

More:

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/010606/harold_evans_says_press_is_partly_to_blame_for_911

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An extraordinary piece, really damning.

[Deja Q]

1. Isn't that the paper owned by Reverend Moon?

[Taxloss]

2. Indeed it is. n/t

[blm]

3. HALLELUJAH!!!! Harold Evans, my favorite historian, pulling the covers

off a BFEE newspaper. Bush/Moon alliance - may it rest in hell.

[tocqueville]

4. right link here

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/010606/harold_evans_says_press_is_partly_to_blame_for_911

[Taxloss]

5. Ooops.

That's what comes of clumsy cutting and pasting.

[tocqueville]

6. it explains Cheney's behaviour

"According to Evans, in many places most people agreed with the statement made by an American senator that the media enjoys a reputation "lower than quail's crap"."

[Kellanved]

7. rule of thumb: if the media knows, then so does the "other" side

If a rag like the WT is able to obtain the information, then you can be pretty sure that Osama already knew - the info obviously wasn't very secret. Blaming the press and press freedom is a dangerous line of argumentation.

[Taxloss]

8. I don't think he's "blaming" press freedom for anything.

If anything, he seems to be urging them to think things through for themselves a bit more. Press freedom is one thing - slavish devotion to the tidbits from the table of the "intelligence community" is another.

Believe me, a man with as distinguished a background in crusading investigative journalism as Evans is a big friend of press freedom.

[Taxloss]

10. This is intersting, actually - he's changed his tune a lot.

I just went and dug out my copy of Evans' book Good Times, Bad Times (Coronet 1984) - a cracking read for anyone interested in the workings of newspapers, how to succeed in investigative journalism, and who enjoys the idea of Rupert Murdoch being berated for about 500 pages. He has a lot of nice things to say about the state of the American media in 1984. For instance:

"Journalism (under editor Thomson) had a chance to show what might be achieved with reasonable freedom and resources. The freedom of the press is commonly discussed in relation to government and law. These external restraints are important. I spent a considerable amount of my career as an editor trying to find ways around them. In 1974 in the Granada Guildhall lectures, frustrated by laws of contempt and confidence, I chacterized the British press as 'half-free' by comparison with the press of the United States. The comparison remains, in my judgment substantially as valid today as then."

But that was before Murdoch, Black, Moon and their ilk had really got to work ...

[Minnesota Libra]

9. Good article - now if they would just listen and learn. nt

[pretzel4gore]

11. the pigmedia is entirely to blame for the bush presiduncy..

nt

[Taxloss]

12. K. n/t

[applegrove]

13. That happened under Clinton. Clinton had proof bin Laden did the Cole.

Clinton left a plan for the new Bush WH. Bush dropped the ball. More interested in Iraq at the outset. And then apparently, again, by early afternoon on 9/11.

That left a morning without Iraq being a major focus of Bush policy.