Jeff Cohen and Ray McGovern talk about the corporate media's coverage of the Bush administration during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.
They argue that the corporate media failed in its responsibility to ask tough questions and instead decided to largely act as cheerleaders for going to war. Jeff Cohen addresses this issue through his experience producing MSNBC's Phil Donahue's Show during this period and talks about why the show was cancelled just prior to the invasion.
Ray McGovern, who worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years, discusses what the intelligence community was saying about Iraq prior to the war and talks about a confrontation he had with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during an event in Atlanta this past May.
After their presentations, writer/director Robert Taicher makes remarks about his new documentary Rush to War (http://www.rushtowar.com). The discussion is moderated by Take On the Media founder Jeff Norman (www.takeonthemedia.org).
Bio
Jeff Cohen
Jeff Cohen founded the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting in 1986. Jeff Cohen worked for MSNBC as an on-air commentator and senior producer of Donahue, until the show was terminated on the eve of the Iraq war. Before that, he was a weekly panelist on Fox News Channel’s “News Watch,†and briefly co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire.†Over the years, he has been a frequent guest on national TV and radio, including “The Today Show,†“Larry King Live,†“The O’Reilly Factor,†C-SPAN, and NPR. He is the author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.â€
Raymond McGovern
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years, serving seven presidents. Ray McGovern is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and is currently co-director of the Servant Leadership School in Washington, DC.
Jeff Norman
Founder, Take On the Media
Robert Taicher
Filmmaker Robert Taicher began his career as a producer of Alejandro Jodorowsky's “The Holy Mountain.†For the last three years he has worked as a writer, producer, and director of the soon-to-be-released documentary, “Rush To War,†an examination of the events surrounding September 11th, 2001 and American foreign policy.