Knight-Ridder on Getting It Right
Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel got a lot right in 2002. Landay and Strobel, both journalists with Knight-Ridder’s Washington bureau, got so much right that the Washington Press Club gave them an award for it. They got right, in fact, much of what the New York Times got wrong in the year before the war in Iraq. You can see the difference in a single Knight-Ridder headline from February 13, 2002: “Bush has decided to overthrow Hussein”
- A Sample of Knight-Ridder Intelligence Headlines Before the Iraq War
- CIA report reveals analysts’ split over extent of Iraqi nuclear threat, 10/4/02
Lack of hard evidence of Iraqi weapons worries top U.S. officials, 9/6/02
Planning Unit Is Another Sign Bush Is Preparing to Oust Saddam, 8/16/02
Iran - not Iraq - is top terrorism sponsor, U.S. report says, 5/22/02
Iraqi opposition leader suspected of misusing U.S. funds, but may get more, 2/20/02
Bush has decided to overthrow Hussein, 2/13/02
Former CIA Director Looks for Evidence that Iraq Had Role in Attacks, 10/11/01
Experts say Iraq, Hussein not likely tied to terrorist attacks, 9/22/01
We spoke to Jonathan Landay this afternoon about the discrepancy between Knight-Ridder’s reporting and that of the New York Times.
We checked out everything that the New York Times reported, and our sources simply disputed what was appearing in the Times. Indeed, we determined that much of what the Times reported about the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program was incorrect. Two major cases in point: the idea that the famed aluminum tubes were for an alleged Iraq nuclear weapons program and a report quoting an alleged Iraqi defector as having visited twenty of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction sites.
Jonathan Landay
We may have asked questions other journalists failed to ask. In addition, high-level sources on whom other journalists depended were pushing the agenda for war. Many of our sources were “working stiffs” in defense, intelligence and diplomacy, people who were not invested in the political agenda.
Jonathan Landay
I also think it was the case that people didn’t want to jepoardize their access. This administration is incredibly vengeful in going after people that it considers critics, people who ask the wrong questions, who write things this administration dislikes.
Jonathan Landay
I find it interesting that in Judith Miller’s own account Lewis Libby told her that the Vice President didn’t know anything about Wilson or the trip to Niger. The CIA filed their first report on Wilson’s trip — although they didn’t mention him by name — in March 2002, to the White House and other government agencies. This was months before Libby had his meeting with Judith Miller and ten months before the President’s State of the Union address. We know of two other senior officials who during that time filed reports similar to Wilson’s. We also know of conversations in which CIA officials informed White House staff and congressional staff of the dubious nature of the Niger allegations. I find it hard to believe that Cheney, whom we know to have been intensely interested in the Niger allegations, would not have known about these reports.
Jonathan Landay
I don’t know how else to put it, but we got it right because we were doing our job. … We decided that there is no decision graver, more serious, than that of committing the bloood and treasure of the nation to war. … We saw it as our responsibility to look at the case and the justifications, to verify what the President was telling his people.
Jonathan Landay
October 17th, 2005 at 8:53 pm
Brendan– This is a jewel of find. I would have certainly made time to listen to the show if you had this team on the air. Jon
October 17th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
I second the motion. The quality of the K-R washington bureau on WMD was amazing. This story has legs and these guys deserve to be made folk hero’s.
October 19th, 2005 at 9:18 am
[...] ld do a balancing piece on Knight-Ridder reporters Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, who did their fucking jobs. I’m sure FOX’s viewers would be heartened [...]
October 19th, 2005 at 11:21 am
More interviews with Landay, Strobel and a bunch of other media types on Iraq here. (BTW, Kent Bye, the blogger/filmmaker who conducted the interviews, might make an interesting interview himself).
October 19th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
There may be no subject as central to American politics today than the devolution of the press corps into propaganda parrots.
The issue is not just how and why 2 young journalists got it right. But how the subservience of the New York media, post 9-11, has eroded their credibility.
Will Podcasts and Blogs replace the NYT as the source “of record�?
Or will these tools, like the choices in TV, Radio and Newspapers, just make it easier for us to hear what we want to hear?
October 19th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
A show like this would be fascinating -
to hear the internal mechanics of MANAGEMENT at K-R that allows this
“I don’t know how else to put it, but we got it right because we were doing our job. … We decided that there is no decision graver, more serious, than that of committing the bloood and treasure of the nation to war. … We saw it as our responsibility to look at the case and the justifications, to verify what the President was telling his people.”
to happen.
People like Landay and Strobel get it right, - they are empowered to make it happen. I would like to ask them questions about their management.
October 20th, 2005 at 1:01 am
Just to keep score here:
jspoteet– Screw blogs and podcasts for the moment: will you recognize two good journalists when you see them?
Three people want a show to feature with Landay and Strobel. What’s the response?
See the Miller show thread, which I ended with
a poetic coda to press this point.
October 28th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
The CIA new about the pakistani nuclear program.
Read about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan who was released by the netherlands on request of the CIA because the wanted to follow him.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:45 am
I watched Bill Moyer’s report on the war in Iraq last evening. Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel are centainly very good reporters that aimed at getting this Iraq War thing right. It’s too bad that other media i.e. reporters did not see the truth about the Iraq conflict. IT sort of reminded me of the Woodward, Bernstein and Watergate
affair so many years ago. I just wish that our so called media would get things right.
April 20th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
[...] f standards reported in the Times today, journalists (with exceptions like James Landay and Warren Strobel, then at Knigh [...]