From The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, by Seymour Hersh & Jonathan Schell:
"The blame for the news media's failures in covering the Bush administration and the war in Iraq lies mainly with the top editors at national news outlets, say acclaimed reporters Seymour Hersh and Jonathan Schell.
"I would get rid of the top editors of the networks, The New York Times, I would just cut 'em all off," Hersh said to laughs from the audience at a November 8 discussion at New York University.Schell cited his own naivete about Vietnam as the basis for his ground-breaking war reporting for The New Yorker."I didn't know what was happening in the war, so all I could see was what was in front of my nose," he explained. "And it became almost immediately clear to me that this whole thing was an absurdity in its own terms. In other words: We were supposed to be saving the people but we were attacking them; we were supposed to be making them happy but they were being tortured and suffering."
In one exchange, Hersh and Schell lamented the ease with which the Bush administration has exerted power over the press.
"The New York Times was banned from flying on Dick Cheney's plane during the campaign," Schell said. "That's an example for you ..."
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