The bang-up journalistic rigor of Thomas Ricks (or: Look in the damn mirror!)

Here's Thomas Ricks (a Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post and the author of "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq") at the World Affairs Council in August 2007, responding to a question about the media's failures in the run-up to the Iraq war (at about 51:30 in the program):

You know, I had an argument about this with Noam Chomsky, the leftist at MIT.  He and I were on a radio show together and he kept on going on about the MSM, the mainstream media, this and that.  And it suddenly dawned on me, I said, "Professor Chomsky, when you say the mainstream media, what you're really talking about is one thing: the New York Times."  And he said, "Yeah."  And I said, "I don't work for the New York Times."

(The bare words on the page don't begin to do justice to the smirking condescension of Ricks' delivery, by the way; for that you'll have to listen to the audio.)

Now, anyone who's read or listened to Chomsky at any length knows that this is a complete crock--Chomsky doesn't use the phrase "MSM", and he certainly doesn't restrict his reading to the New York Times.  So I decided to find out whether Ricks was making this up, or just mangling the facts beyond all recognition.

The radio show Ricks was referring to was "Open Source," hosted by Christopher Lydon.  Lydon conducted an hour-long interview of Noam Chomsky and to a lesser extent Ricks in August 2006.  The specific exchange Ricks is referring to goes like so (at about 30:00 in the program):

LYDON: The media didn't ask many questions either [before the Iraq war], and it's given--the last month--a pretty blind eye.

RICKS: I think that's one of the great myths of our modern times, that the media didn't ask questions.  We asked questions, we didn't get answers.  We wrote stories.  I wrote a story a month before the invasion, I asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, "You don't know where the WMD is, do you?", and he said, "No, but I'm confident that once we cross the border the Iraqis will show us."  I wrote these stories, Walter Pincus wrote these stories.  Now, yeah, the New York Times screwed things up to a fare-thee-well, but you're painting with a pretty broad brush if you say "the media".

LYDON: Fair enough, Tom, I stand corrected, but I do--I am a New York Times refugee, and reader.  But--

RICKS: Well you should expand your reading base.

LYDON: I stand corrected.

So Ricks' version of what "Chomsky" said is not only miles off the mark, it didn't even involve Chomsky; rather, these were Christopher Lydon's views that Ricks was mischaracterizing.  Ricks had already asked Chomsky several direct questions and had had lengthy exchanges with him (and Lydon sounds nothing like Chomsky), so Ricks certainly would have known who he was talking to at any given time.

And it's not that these were the only views about the media expressed during the radio show, and so Ricks might understandably have made a simple mistake about the source.  In fact Chomsky explained in detail his own views on the media's performance before the Iraq war, in direct discussion with Ricks.  Here's a small excerpt of what Chomsky actually did say (starting at around 35:00):

CHOMSKY: I agree with Tom Ricks that the media, in a professional sense, did their job.  I suspect the Russian media did too [regarding Afghanistan in the 1980's].  They described the catastrophes, they asked who was responsible, etcetera. ...

[To Ricks] While I agree with you about the reporting--you know, there are brave, serious, honorable reporters there, and people ask questions like "Where are the WMD?", but they didn't ask the question, "Do we have the right to commit the supreme international crime?"  If anyone were to compare the treatment of the Afghan war in Pravda with the treatment of this war in the United States, I think it would be very similar.

Or in other words, not only did Chomsky not "go on about the MSM, the mainstream media, this and that," but he actually agreed with Ricks, twice--albeit with the kind of deeply illuminating analogy that is his hallmark.  And Ricks was responding to (or arguing with) Chomsky throughout this discussion, as you'll see if you listen to it for yourself.  So Ricks got a crystal clear summary of Chomsky's views of the media--yet he somehow managed to quote, attribute, and summarize them completely incorrectly.

I spared you the tail end of Ricks' quote from the World Affairs Council (at the top) for as long as I could, but now I'm afraid you must suffer as I have.  Here's what followed Ricks' reality-free swipe at Chomsky:

I stand by my coverage.  Are there stories I wish I'd written differently?  Yeah.  Are there stories I wish I'd written more than once?  Yeah.  But if you go back and read the Washington Post, we did a pretty bang-up job during the run-up to the war.  And my answer to the American people is, don't blame the media--look in the damn mirror.  The information was available.  Don't blame it on the media.

Yes, given the above demonstration of his journalistic rigor, I'm sure that Ricks did (and continues to do) a bang-up job of giving the public all the accurate and complete reporting they need to make informed decisions, and so we should all stop blaming Thomas Ricks.  The American people thought there were WMDs Iraq?  LOOK IN THE DAMN MIRROR.  The American people thought Iraq was in cahoots with al Qaeda?  LOOK IN THE DAMN MIRROR.  The American people expected to be crushed under the anvil of Iraq's awesome power unless Bush attacked Iraq first?  LOOK IN THE DAMN MIRROR!  It's not Thomas Ricks' fault that the American people can't keep the facts straight!  Thomas Ricks reported it all and then let the American people decide!  The American people got it wrong?  STOP BLAMING THOMAS RICKS!  MIRROR!  MIRROR!  LOOK IN THE DAMN MIRROR!  GEHAAFAFERRRRRAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Whoa, sorry.  Got carried away there for a second.

(For some examples of Thomas Ricks' bang-up job of giving the American people all the information on Iraq, see this Nexis-flexing article by Jonathan Schwarz.)

I'd highly recommend that you take an hour to listen to the entire Open Source radio interview with Chomsky (and Ricks).  Not only is it filled with useful information, it's also worth hearing for yourself the contrast between the shallow, mainstream pomposity of Ricks' views and the humility and depth of knowledge that Chomsky displays in dismantling them.  Ricks is badly outclassed, and he comes out of it looking like a second-rate Thomas Friedman--which is, I suspect, a large part of the reason that his mind decided to rearrange this embarrassing bit of history to make "the leftist at MIT" look worse and him look better.

Comments

[Tracy McLellan]

Yeah, we the American people knew there were no WMD in Iraq - at least anybody who was paying attention. Indeed, Hans Blix and the UN inspectors were in Iraq since November, 2002 until several weeks prior to the invasion when they were withdrawn antecedent to the invasion, and had found exactly nothing. We however didn't have the power of the MSM [yes, I'll use the term] to stop the war, which rather led the drumbeats for it. Aside, I prefer to refer to Chomsky as The Genius.

[Thomas Daulton]

The phrase "look in the mirror" is eerily appropriate -- never, ever, ever, underestimate the raw power of people's ability to rewrite history in their own minds in order to make themselves look better. If you had talked to Ricks about this (in person, not in print) in June of 2003, he probably would have admitted to a lot more personal wrongdoing... but by summer 2005, well, he had probably convinced himself that he and his colleagues did a "bang-up job" but the black-and-white transcripts don't really tell the story. I've done that sort of thing myself, of course... "Ya gotta read between the lines and get a sense of the zeitgeist, man," etcetera, projecting 2005+ rationalizations onto his performance in 2003.

Probably 99% of the remaining war supporters who live _outside_ Washington have long since convinced themselves that WMD was an insignificant detail in their lives in 2002; that they _and_ President Bush (and Colin Powell) had always, always intended to go there in order to liberate the Iraqi people from a dictator. So what's all this crap about Bush Lied, anyway? He never lied for a minute about this...

I realize you're no fan of the Democrats, but simply as another example, I have to point out: nobody could possibly stomach voting for the same Democrat twice, without this ability to rewrite and re-rationalize history. Progressives vote for Democrats in order to do some good in the world... (presumably many Republicans do so as well, with about the same result)... the Democrats utterly fail to live up to any slight portion of the highminded ideals they were elected for... and then the progressive voter rewrites history, improving the Democrat's performance in his or her own mind, just so that the voter doesn't feel like such a schmuck and a dupe for voting for the candidate and believing their campaign speeches.

[Thomas Daulton]

Oh, it should go without saying, but just in case: I launched into this chain of thought because it's obvious that Thomas Ricks simply re-wrote the transcript of the radio show, in his own mind, in order to cast himself as a fierce, proud media warrior who stood up to the despicable Noam Chomsky who is always saying such nasty stuff about his friends in the 'Biz. In fact, Ricks was probably so busy re-writing history in his own mind, _right there in the radio booth_, that Ricks was probably not even paying much attention to what Chomsky was saying and thus completely missed the fact that Chomsky agreed with him.

[Thomas Daulton]

Ooops, now _I_ just skipped over the concluding sentence of your article, which makes a lot of my comment redundant... sorry!

[John Caruso]

Tracy: You're exactly right about people who were paying attention (and who weren't ideologically inclined to ignore the facts); in fact I was maddened by it, as I'm sure you were. It's just cynical posturing on Ricks' part to blame the American people as a whole, though, since he knows full well that the necessary information was downplayed, marginalized, and in some cases outright suppressed.

Thomas: Yeah, there's definitely some self-delusion going on. I think even among progressives who say they're holding their noses when they vote for Democrats, there's an irresistible urge to root for your team--even if it's the one you've chosen only out of expediency (witness Michael Moore's pathetic praise of Kerry in 2004).

[John]

I just listened to the radio show, and I was surprised, after reading your post, by how many things they agreed on.

[John]

And I'm glad because I like both of them.