• American Journalism Review, Tuesday, July 11, 2006 11:30 AM

Having done “a superb job of quelling dissent” in the wake of the attacks of 9/11, the Bush Administration “vigorously enforced the notion that questioning its anti-terrorism policies was simply unpatriotic behavior,” writes Rem Reider in the American Journalism Review.  “The U.S. news media retreated from their skeptical, not to say confrontational, approach to the federal government.” And the results, Reider continues, weren’t too pretty, including “credulous coverage” of the case for the war in Iraq. And now, with criticism of stories on programs to spy on private financial transactions, “some of the rhetoric seems a bit disingenuous.” It has hardly been a secret that law enforcement officials are tracking terrorist money, “given the fact that [the administration] has loudly trumpeted that it's doing so.” What's involved, Reider contends, is an old “tactic of trying to score political points by using the press as a piñata. Whether that's a winner for an administration with anemic poll numbers and a quagmire in Iraq is a good question. But the broader goal is to get the press to back off.”

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