Editor & Publisher: "Will press roll over again on new WMD report?"

[Newsjock]

Perhaps this story needs to be emailed to every TV news outfit, and every newspaper editor, right away.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1971091

By Greg Mitchell
NEW YORK -- Shoptalk Column

Some time in the next two weeks, David Kay, head of the Iraqi Survey Group, is expected to finally release a crucial report on his findings so far in his search for weapons of destruction.

"I am confident that when people see what David Kay puts forward they will see that there was no question that such weapons exist, existed, and so did the programs to develop more," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday. "We did not try to hype it or blow it out of proportion."

Since no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have been found in Iraq, close observers now report that Kay is likely to drop on the media a massive weapon of his own: hundreds or thousands of pages of summaries and documents purporting to prove that Saddam Hussein had WMDs recently (and hid them) and/or had numerous WMD programs underway that we succeeded in pre-empting.

In the parlance once used by Howell Raines, Kay thereby will "flood the zone" and hope the press portrays what may be largely assertion -- not fact -- as compelling proof. Would the media possibly fall for this? There are disturbing indications that they would.

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[PDittie]

1. E&P was the Bible

for newspaper editors, publishers, advertising directors, circulation managers, and their assistants, but that was when I was still in the game, and that's been 15 years ago.

Does anyone think there is still time to wake the lapdog up and remind him he's a watchdog?

[tom_paine]

3. That lapdog has been fed downers by the Busheviks

and the Right-Wing Sub-Media.

Not sure anything could wake it/tehm up at this point.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. The press won't wait for the flood of pages

The press will roll over a day or two before the flood is released. "Well, that's it," the press will say. "Case closed. Mission accomplished. Glorious Leader was obviously right all along."

The bastards.