Big Think

Question: Does the media bear any responsibility for the war in Iraq?

Tom Freston: Well I don’t know. I mean there’s a lot of responsibility to go around. You could say that the media had a case of a post 9/11 lapse of judgment and were maybe as fearful as what we might actually be involved with, or what might be coming that may have been the case; and that was a real national patriotism issue that may be more important than it actually was, and that leadership should not have been questioned. And where was the media? You know there were voices in the media who were telling the truth. There were politicians that were telling the truth. Maybe they weren’t getting as much coverage as others; but to blame the media is like you’re blaming some single blob when in fact it’s thousands of different voices. So maybe they didn’t do well . . . as well on this in aggregate as they have on some other issues, and it wasn’t as balanced. But I think that’s probably the case.

Recorded On: 7/6/07