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Beating around Bush
When a myth helps lead to war, the press and the President should be active, not passive, debunkers
EVERY DAY, NEWSPAPER EDITORS MUST GRAPPLE WITH the question: "What is news?" There is a fine calculus that goes into determining what belongs on the front page, what gets buried in the middle, and what doesn't appear in a newspaper at all.
In my article "Bush 9/11 Admission Gets Little Play" (E&P Online, Sept. 19), I explored the results of my study of how the 12 largest daily newspapers by circulation handled what seemed like an important event: President Bush admitting two days earlier that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, contrary to popular belief (an oft-cited August poll conducted by The Washington Post revealed that 69% of Americans believe that Hussein was personally involved in the attacks).
As it turned out, only three of the 12 biggest papers put the Bush admission on their front page, and two (The Watt Street Journal ana New York Post) didn't mention it at all.
Within minutes after the story appeared online, we started getting letters. Some were the usual partisan rants, but more revealing were notes from...