{"id":929,"date":"2008-05-29T09:46:39","date_gmt":"2008-05-29T16:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=929"},"modified":"2008-10-01T10:21:04","modified_gmt":"2008-10-01T17:21:04","slug":"press-succumbs-to-patriotic-fever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=929","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Yellin: Press Succumbs To Patriotic Fever"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a discussion on CNN<\/a> of the book by former White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, Anderson Cooper quoted a passage that criticized the press for not being sufficiently aggressive in their coverage of the war in Iraq and the Bush administration.<\/p>\n

McClellan: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CNN reporter Jessica Yellin then described her experience with network news executives who pressured her to deliver stories that were slanted in favor of the President.<\/p>\n

Yellin: “The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings. And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yellin’s admission provides a stark confirmation of McClellan’s criticism. The press was indeed too deferential – because their bosses ordered them to be.<\/p>\n

The real tragedy of all this is that these confessions always come far too late. Too late for the 4,000+ dead American soldiers and their families. Too late for the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians. Too late for the next generation af Americans who will be burdened by the loss of international respect and trust, not to mention the burden of $2 trillion (and counting) of war debt.<\/p>\n

Yellin is not the first journalist to issue this sort of belated mea culpa. I documented several other examples<\/a> a year and a half ago. You just have to wonder where these people’s ethics were at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a discussion on CNN of the book by former White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, Anderson Cooper quoted a passage that criticized the press for not being sufficiently aggressive in their coverage of the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. McClellan: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,312,18],"class_list":["post-929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-cnn","tag-jessica-yellin","tag-scott-mcclellan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-eZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":928,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=928","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":0},"title":"The Scott McClellan Confessional","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/28\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Former White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, has joined the ranks of Bush administration castoffs to write a tell-all book illuminating their role in degrading our Democracy. While this book is a particularly damning reminiscence, it is also a stab at absolution. Here a few of the atrocities that McClellan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=131","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":1},"title":"Wanted: White House Mouthpiece","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/19\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, is rumored to be amongst the next wave of administration officials to be spending more time with family. The Washington Times already has an ad for his replacement. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Click to view full size ad This skill set describes a a vast pool of potential\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":670,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=670","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":2},"title":"A White House Awash In Lies","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/21\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Former White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, is joining the ranks of castoff Bushies to belatedly embrace truthfulness in advance of the publication of a new book. This is a disturbing pattern amongst public figures who lie while in office and then recant their deception, after they've been ejected from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1072,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1072","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":3},"title":"Another Media Mea Culpa For The War In Iraq","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/1\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In a book review for Bob Woodward's latest installment of his Bush chronicles, the New York Times' Jill Abramson decides it's time to salve her guilty conscience. Woodward's \"The War Within\" serves as the impetus for her confessional. Abramson reveals her misgivings regarding the Times' coverage of the build up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=137","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":4},"title":"The Tony Snow Job","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/26\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I suppose it was inevitable. Former Poppa Bush speechwriter, current Fox News commentator and Fox Radio talk show host, Tony Snow, been appointed White House Press Secretary. Since Snow has been shilling for the president for years in his current job, a guest on Keith Olbermann's Countdown recently asked if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66273,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=66273","url_meta":{"origin":929,"position":5},"title":"WHUT? Washington Post Op-Ed Praises CNN for Being ‘Pro-Trump’ in All His ‘Fact-Deprived Glory’","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/18\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The state of journalism in the era of Donald Trump has suffered an alarmingly rapid descent into submissiveness to power and capitulation to the threats of an aspiring authoritarian whose dependence on, and hostility toward, the media has long been openly and loudly expressed. Click here to post this article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"General Donald Trump on CNN","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/FoxNews\/trump-cnn-general.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/FoxNews\/trump-cnn-general.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/FoxNews\/trump-cnn-general.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}