Journalism: The New York Times is the most important newspaper in the US. It holds an exalted position as the arbiter of policy and the authoritative paper of record.
As Hendrik Hertzberger wrote in the New Yorker: "It's scarcely an exaggeration to say that the Times defines public reality." The critics of the paper are mostly to be found among the supporters of the government of the time. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, it was hard on Bill Clinton.
The paper that publishes "all the news that's fit to print" is, however, widely seen as the organ of the liberal elite in a polarised America. Its op-ed page is a forum for liberal commentators such as Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert. But in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, the New York Times beat the drums for war as loudly as anyone else. Bill Keller, now the executive editor of the New York Times, wrote laudatory profiles of George Bush and Paul Wolfowitz. He and other "liberals" confessed they belonged to the "I Can't Believe I'm a Hawk Club". They implied that they brought a higher level of intellect in reaching the same conclusion as the neo-cons in the Pentagon. They were, as Keller said, baby-boom liberals made wary of war by Vietnam but who had an epiphany over Bosnia.
The paper of record published many page-one stories about how Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, citing unnamed officials. A number were written by top reporter Judith Miller. The reports contributed enormously to the impression that war was the only policy option for the administration.
This episode in the New York Times's history was vastly more significant, and damaging, than the con job worked on the paper by "reporter" Jayson Blair, who invented and plagiarised stories and who brought about the downfall of editor-in-chief Howell Raines. But it fits the argument advanced in this book - that despite its liberal reputation, the Times is sometimes a shrill for American foreign policy and is guilty of "journalistic malfeasance" in not taking into account the relevance of international law in Washington's policies. In more than 70 editorials before the invasion of Iraq, the authors say, the paper never discussed international law or the the UN Charter in the context of President Bush's war plans.
The authors - Richard Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton, and Howard Friel, the author of a number of books critical of the conservative media - maintain that by invading Iraq without Security Council approval, the US violated UN Charter Article 2(4) which prohibits states to use or threaten force without the council's approval except in response to an actual or clearly imminent armed attack. It was no different, they say, when the Times supported foreign policy in Vietnam, Nicaragua or Venezuela. The authors maintain that Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, funded by the Pentagon, were the main source for Miller's stories, which proved so seriously wrong. More than a year after the war started, the Times disowned the reports in an inside page editorial written by Keller. The case this book makes is essentially that disregarding international law is evidence of an "imperial presidency" and that the Times has a duty not to undermine international law. Their point is a valid one, but many practitioners of the trade would argue that the prime duty of a newspaper is just to get it right as near as possible.
Also, the US intervened in the Balkans to save lives without UN backing. And they didn't take seriously enough the possibility that newspaper screw-ups are often the result of internal newsroom dynamics, malfunctioning editorial systems or the insidious temptation not to check out a good story more thoroughly in case it proves to be wrong. Most journalists have bad experiences about being given false information by a source. We are used all the time, and it is easy to be blinded by the lure of the scoop. Also anyone reading the New York Times editorials today would not conclude that it was part of the neo-con agenda. Their policy today seems driven, if anything, by the old saying: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy By Howard Friel and Richard Falk Verso, 304pp. £16
Conor O'Clery is North America Editor of The Irish Times