So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits--and the President--Failed on Iraq [Paperback]

Greg Mitchell (Author), Bruce Springsteen (Preface), Joseph L. Galloway (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2008

It is often said that a free press is the watchdog of democracy, insuring that the conduct of our leaders is examined with a critical eye. This makes Greg Mitchell the watchdog of watchdogs, as tracking the performance of the media is his priority at Editor and Publisher, the influential magazine of the newspaper industry. In 2003, Greg Mitchell was one of the few journalists to question the grounds for the war in Iraq. Today, Mitchell looks ahead at lessons for the future with an original introduction and connecting material that updates and unifies his original essays and scrutiny of America's media coverage. With more than 75 of Mitchell's columns, this book provides a unique history of the conflict, from the hyped "weapons of mass destruction" stories to the "surge."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this pertinent but ego-driven compilation of writings on the Iraq War, Mitchell, editor of media industry magazine Editor & Publisher, argues that, from the outset, the press did not adequately question the reasoning behind American operations in Iraq. Quoting his publication, Mitchell condemns the press's tendency "to accept the military's word first and ask questions later," citing specific examples like the media's blind approval of Secretary of State Powell's Feb., 2003, speech favoring a call to arms. Mitchell describes incidents like this as a symptom of the media's "failure of will" to probe matters of national security. His thesis-that a weak press deserves blame for the Iraq quagmire-is hard to argue with, but it's not exactly news. Still, he provides a valuable roundup of media reactions from across the spectrum, and his grievances are substantial. Ultimately, though, Mitchell is difficult to distinguish from the one-sided, single-minded figures he rails against; readers will learn a great deal about the media politics behind the Iraq war, but will have to decide for themselves how trustworthy a pundit Mitchell really is.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Worthy of shelving alongside the best of the Iraq books.”--Kirkus

 

“Greg Mitchell has given us a razor-sharp critique of how the media and the government connived in one of the great blunders of American foreign policy. Every aspiring journalist, every veteran, every pundit—and every citizen who cares about the difference between illusion and reality, propaganda and the truth, and looked to the press to help keep them separate—should read this book. Twice.”—Bill Moyers

"With the tragic war in Iraq dragging on, and the drumbeat for new conflicts growing louder, this is more than a five-year history of the biggest foreign policy debacle of our times—it's a cautionary tale that is as relevant as this morning's headlines. Greg Mitchell makes it clear that Iraq is a case study in bad judgment, from the misguided moves of an administration blinded by its zealotry to a complacent media that too often acted as an extension of the White House press office.  Read it and weep; read it and get enraged; read it and make sure it doesn't happen again."—Arianna  Huffington

“The profound failure of the American press with regard to the Iraq War may very well be the most significant political story of this generation.  Greg Mitchell has established himself as one of our country's most perceptive media critics, and here he provides invaluable insight into how massive journalistic failures enabled the greatest strategic disaster in the nation's history.”—Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com columnist and author of  A Tragic Legacy and How Would a Patriot Act?

 

"Anyone who cares about the integrity of the American media should read this book. Greg Mitchell asks tough questions about the Iraq war that should have been asked long ago, in a poignant, patriotic, and thoughtful dissection of our war in Iraq. Mitchell names names and places blame on those who’ve blundered. Examining the most complex issue of our time, he connects the dots like no one else has."—Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and author of Chasing Ghosts

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Union Square Press (March 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402756577
• ISBN-13: 978-1402756573
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #933,547 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 65 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreakingly Convincing March 11, 2008

By John Doble

Format:Paperback

Bill Moyers, one of the country's great journalists, praised this book for good reason -- it is a heartbreakingly convincing account of how the media failed to perform the role that Jefferson and Madison envisioned--to serve as critical interrogators and skeptics of the government instead of its enablers. Mitchell details how the media aided and abetted George Bush, Hillary Clinton and others in the Congress as they recklessly and unquestioningly blundered into the Iraq war. I hope that every journalist reads and learns from this well informed account and that every American reads it and starts demanding more from the news media created to keep us informed. This is one the most important books of the past few years.

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be handed out in every newsroom and assigned to every student of journalism March 7, 2008

By Jason Leopold

Format:Paperback

Greg Mitchell has done the public a great service in documenting the historic failure of the Fourth Estate to hold our elected officials accountable for using the media to peddle false information about the so-called threat posed by the Iraqi regime. Even worse, Mitchell's well-researched book shows how the press has continued to print and broadcast facts about Iraq emanating from the White House that has been dismissed as bogus.

History teachers should use"So Wrong for So Long" as a classroom textbook so students can learn the truth about how the media was complicit in helping the Bush administration sell the Iraq war to Congress and the public.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars More than just a media critique March 20, 2008

By Emily Vaughan

Format:Paperback

Greg Mitchell's book is an excellent critique of the media and its handling of Iraq war, but it also serves as a reminder of everything that has happened in the last five turbulent years. By looking at the war in its entirety through the lens of media coverage, it not only compiles a history of the events of the war, but also a history of opinion and views about the war, and equally important factor in this controversial engagement. His unbiased and skeptical view of the events are an example of how journalists should have treated it from the beginning, and proof that while many major journalists and publications may have botched the coverage, at least one held true to his journalistic principles and remained outside the tidal wave of populr opinion and spin.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Proof the media didn't have to blow it on Iraq March 18, 2008

By Will Bunch

Format:Paperback

How cool is this? Bruce Springsteen wants you to buy this book. Mitchell, the editor of Editor and Publisher who hobnobbed with rock 'n' roll glitterati during his stint at the legenday magazine Crawdaddy! Springsteen says in a brief (i.e., it's a lot more concise than "Jungleland") preface that Mitchell's book "is to remind us that we all need to be more questioning, skeptical and savvy than ever in assessing information that's presented to us. And we ought to teach our children to do the same."

"So Wrong for So Long" is certainly a big start in the right direction. Using a variety of writing techniques and approaches that stretch over five agonizing years of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the collected works touch on the wide scope of journalistic malpractice that stretches to the present, including the early ignoring of Abu Ghraib, civilian casualties, Haditha, and military suicides, among others. One thing stood out as a recurring and awful theme: That it didn't have to be this way, that America's journalists had plenty of information that was readily available in late 2002 and early 2003 to show that the case for the war was partly overhyped but mostly bogus.

This story has been told a number of times since 2004, when it became more acceptable, even "cool" for a time, to criticize not only the war but the journalists who covered -- but mostly failed to cover -- the bandwagon rush to launch it. But "So Wrong for So Long" takes a different approach, and it's a more powerful one than most of the other Monday morning quarterbacking that's out there. The book collects some 75 of Mitchell's columns that were written in real time, with some additional commentary to provide the context....

Thus, rather than some writer-guy in 2008 pontificating that, sure, it might have been possible to aggressively question that case that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or meaningful ties to al-Qaeda, we can see Greg Mitchell and a few other brave journalists doing exactly that -- and questioning why others did not do the same.

One notable example is a Jan. 23, 2003 (about two months before the war) column entitled "On the War Path." In it, an array of well-known voices, like the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, the Boston Globe's Mark Jurkowitz, Arianna Huffington and Richard Reeves voice a host of misgivings that were getting little play at the time: Why was there such little reporting both of the anti-war protests and the deep but quieter misgivings shared by millions of Americans, of why we were attacking Iraq but not North Korea or whether the president's anger at Saddam was personal?

Greg Mitchell and company were asking the right questions before March 2003, and while he's a great journalist, he also holds no magical powers -- just an inquisitive mind and a sense (acquired in part through his excellent reporting in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings) of a world outside of Beltway spin rooms and steakhouses. As good as this collection is, there are times you'll want to throw it against the wall in frustration there were not 100 or 200 more like him when America needed them. Read more ›

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Puts it all in perspective! March 25, 2008

By ShoreGirl

Format:Paperback

This book gives an excellent account of events leading up to Bush's War, and puts the nightly/daily news in perspective. I now look at 24/7 news channels differently, realizing that they need "stories" to fill their air time, even if those stories are only rumors, suggestions, and innuendo. Viewer beware!!

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Bushs use of fear & the fear of Bush by the press April 12, 2008

By Edward J. Good

Format:Paperback

A must read to see how the fourth leg of our country let us DOWN

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The U.S. Press: The Nadir of a Failed War Policy May 12, 2008

By Herbert L Calhoun

Format:Paperback

Sometimes words like "shameful," "disgusting," and "lack of integrity" are insufficiently descriptive or "biting enough" to convey the depth of feelings experienced by the betrayal committed when the press willingly plays into the hands of an administration hell bent on going to war for no good reason. The press allowed itself to be manipulated into undermining the very checks and balances built into our system, to guarantee our democratic freedoms. They, during this, the second Iraq War, failed us utterly and miserably.

It is at times like these (to steal a phrase from Frederick Douglas' 1852 July 4, speech in Rochester NY where he lambastes the nation for its contradictory practice of slavery) that: "scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed ... For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. [It is at times like these that] the feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; ..." and its crimes against our democratic institutions must be proclaimed and denounced.

This book by Greg Miller, of seventy-five articles taken from the prestigious news industry magazine, Editor & Publisher, is the perfect antidote to the almost criminal laxity of the press in the run up to and during the Iraq War.... Not only are these chronologically unfolding articles full of facts but they are also full of "scorching irony" and "fire" as its anecdotes call attention to the fact that our so called "watchdog of democracy" during the run up to, and during the Iraq war, willingly, and before our very eyes, turned into an "old flea-bitten mangy, salivating Pavlovian Bitch," promiscuously wagging her tail in the hopes of receiving another meatless bone tossed from the back door of the White house.

We know that our democracy has reached its nadir, and is in deep trouble, when the press willingly gets in bed with the likes of Dick Chaney, G.W. Bush, Condoleeza Rice, and George Tenet, and throws people like General Colin Powell and General John Abezaid under the bus under the rationalization of "required patriotism," in the run up to an unnecessary war.

Here in these seventy-five articles from January 2003 to October 2007, all of the skeletons of a failed press come tumbling out of the closet; to wit: Mission Accomplished, Abu Ghraib, the Friedman Unit, Judith Miller (first as "set upon martyr" and then as "confessed liar"), Colin Powell's "striptease act" before the UN, renditions and rumors of torture, the lethality of IEDs and Rumsfeld failure to provide our soldiers with proper armor, the Pat Tillman cover-up, the Valier Plame "yellow cake" fiasco, Condoleeza's "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud and the Aluminum tubes incident," embedded reporters, "pack journalism and media groupthink," false reports from the false defectors, Muhammad Atta in Czechoslovia, al-Qaeda operatives in Baghdad, the UN inspectors reports of no WMD in Iraq, Tenet's groveling before Bush -- "It's a slam dunk", General David Petraeus' surge, almost 4,000 U.S. deaths and over 20,000 life-changing injuries but banned photos of returning coffins, plus between 100, 000 and 650,000 Iraqi deaths.

And last but not least, this "slow-motion train wreck," called the Iraq war, could not have happened without a brain dead American public having elected an incompetent President: 75% of whom believed on the eve of the war that Saddam had WMD and 44% believed that the majority of the hijackers were from Iraq, rather than from Saudi Arabia.

The second Iraq war will never be remembered as the American nation's finest hour.

Five stars Read more ›