E&P: 'USA Today' Defends Lack of Coverage for Downing Street Memo

[sabra]

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http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000952574

'USA Today' Defends Lack of Coverage for Downing Street Memo

By E&P Staff

Published: June 08, 2005 1:05 PM ET

NEW YORK In a report on President Bush's joint press conference late yesterday afternoon with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, USA Today for the first time mentioned the so-called Downing Street Memo, first reported in London's Sunday Times on May 1, and explained why the Gannett flagship had not previously covered the memo story.

The Downing Street Memo is reported to be minutes of a July 2002 meeting among Blair and some of his top intelligence and national-security aides. One of the aides reportedly told Blair at the meeting that the Bush administration has already decided to go to war with Iraq and was looking for justification. "Intelligence and facts were being fixed" to make war appear inevitable, the memo reportedly stated. Its veracity has not been contested by No. 10 Downing Street.

Wrote reporter Mark Memmott in the USA Today article's final paragraph: "USA Today chose not to publish anything about the memo before today for several reasons, says Jim Cox, the newspaper's senior assignment editor for foreign news. 'We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source,' Cox says. 'There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing.'"

.....

Ombudsmen at both The New York Times and The Washington Post have criticized their papers for not covering the story more aggressively, Memmott's story noted.


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[chicagojoe]

1. So, will they be covering the story NOW?

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. So, in essence

the trashing of the media campaign by Bush etal has been working very nicely.

[LunaC]

3. I wrote and asked USA Today ONE question

On January 26, 1998, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, and John Bolton (among others) signed a letter to President Clinton issued by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) urging an attack on Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. All of the aforementioned signators were elevated into the Bush Administration hierarchy immediately after the 2000 Election.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm


It is obvious that the PNAC-populated White House intended to attack Iraq years before the actual event.

Why isn't the PNAC policy being connected with the Downing Street Minutes?


For further details on the PNAC see:
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/PNAC_101
================================================

If everyone targeted one media outlet with this same question, we can keep the story alive.

Come, get pissed with me......
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3807017

[ThomWV]

4. These Filthy Bastards

They will publish a lie from Bush without so much as a cursory glance at the underling facts but won't publish the MINUTES unless they are handed down by God himself stepping out from behind a burning fucking bush.

The corruption is unending.