REVIEW: Holding the US Fourth Estate to account on Iraq

Review of Feet to the Fire: The Media after 9/11, edited by Kristina Borjesson

Abstract

It is a truism that one should not shoot the messenger who brings bad news. But what about the messenger who ignores or discards bad news? In the 1970s, the role of investigative reporting in the Vietnam war, the exposure of the Watergate scandal and the subsequent downfall of President Richard Nixon elevated journalists to folk-hero status in the US. The resulting image of journalists—whip-smart, fearless and always one step ahead of the people and events they are covering—persisted through the end of the 20th century.