The Buying the War documentary presents a strong case on the failure of the news media
during the lead-up to the war in Iraq. But there's still room for debate
on the role of the press in critical times. Maybe these practices are
not always as black-and-white as portrayed by this documentary?
Given insufficient information about what was going on in Iraq, the U.S. media acted upon collective values such as patriotism, social coherence, national security/interest, confidence building, and grief management as opposed to playing the watchdog role by questioning the administration or examining the officials' claims independently.
To help the class better understand the complexity of this media-government relationship, you could choose either side -- a) being in line with public opinion, government policy or b) being critical of the authorities or mainstream thinking when the "truth" is hard to get -- and make your argument.
Of particular interest is: What should journalists do if a similar scenario occurs again -- for example, North Korea just launched a nuclear test; China also is often portrayed as a major cause of America's economic problems (e.g., the so-called devaluation of its currency RMB).
Given insufficient information about what was going on in Iraq, the U.S. media acted upon collective values such as patriotism, social coherence, national security/interest, confidence building, and grief management as opposed to playing the watchdog role by questioning the administration or examining the officials' claims independently.
To help the class better understand the complexity of this media-government relationship, you could choose either side -- a) being in line with public opinion, government policy or b) being critical of the authorities or mainstream thinking when the "truth" is hard to get -- and make your argument.
Of particular interest is: What should journalists do if a similar scenario occurs again -- for example, North Korea just launched a nuclear test; China also is often portrayed as a major cause of America's economic problems (e.g., the so-called devaluation of its currency RMB).
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