[rufus_foreman]

The media consistently favored pro-war sources and ignored anti-war sources during the run up to the Iraq war. Publicly holding an anti-war opinion was a dangerous career move in the media at that time.

Journalists like Judith Miller of the New York Times were accused of being "stenographers" who reported whatever they were told by sources in the government without doing any independent verification, with many of the claims they reported later being shown to be false. They would report on things like Colin Powell's testimony to the UN on Iraq rather uncritically, when Colin Powell's own privately stated opinion of the draft of his speech was, "This is bullshit".

The effect of this was that the US public was misinformed about the role of Iraq in terrorism and the 9/11 attacks, as shown by surveys where a majority of the public would get the facts wrong about basic questions surrounding Iraq and 9/11, and both the public and politicians supported the war more than they would have if there was a more balanced debate in the media.

The argument is, basically, "If the US public knew the truth, they wouldn't have approved of going to war". Which of course is the case in most wars the US gets in - the role of the US media in the run up to a war is to make sure the public doesn't know the truth.