Reporter criticizes pre-war coverage

Journalist George Packer accused journalists and government officials of a "herd mentality" in the lead-up to the war in Iraq at a lecture yesterday in Dodds Auditorium.

A staff writer for The New Yorker, Packer discussed his recent book about U.S. involvement in Iraq, "Assassin's Gate." He said the Iraq War and journalism have much in common: they are both "increasingly unpopular events in American life."

He called prewar journalism "a huge failure, a disgrace," explaining that "journalists became captives of their sources."

The diminished trust in journalism is partly due to reporting mishaps before the Iraq War, when journalists sought to beat their rivals to information from administration officials, Packer said. "Part of it is due to the high premium in access, a gradual coming to see your story through the eyes of your sources," he said. "The more you submerge your disagreements, the more you see your source's point of view."

"Front page stories were the victims of higher access," he added. "It became in the press' interest in finding the tip, the bit of information that would get your paper in the front."

Once the war began, however, Iraq became a haven for journalists. Packer said that when he went to Iraq in the summer of 2003, he expected "a traumatized population that had not been able to overcome its fear of openness." Instead, he "found a traumatized population that wouldn't shut up. It was a brief moment when journalists and Iraqis found each other."

Soon after, though, Iraq again became a black hole.

"The spotlight that was turned on Iraq gradually shrunk, and Iraq has fallen into the darkness. It is almost impossible to get a sense of what Iraqis are going through," he said.

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Much of the blame for this falling-off lies with the home front, he said. "The key problem in conveying this war is expectations back here. Our domestic media has grown so loud, so cartoon-like in its ability to discuss issues."

Packer cited the story of Dexter Philkins, a reporter in Fallujah who would sit in a hole with his laptop to write stories. As bombs fell, readers would email him and complain that his stories were too unpleasant — that he was not searching hard enough for good news.

"The bombs are falling on his head, and readers are getting mad because he's only reporting bad news," Packer said, noting that the government was also at fault.

He said that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld '54 has called reporters tools that terrorists are using to attack the Bush administration. "The top administration uses the press as a scapegoat," Packer said, adding that the administration itself "has been a very difficult one to cover."