That sort of "go-with-the-conventional-wisdom" attitude -- even inside supposedly left-of-center publications like The Nation or The New Yorker -- eventually led to my founding of Consortiumnews.com in 1995 as a home for well-researched journalism on important topics that had been orphaned by the existing news media.
As it would turn out, many years later before he died, Barcella told me that not even he agreed with Barcella. While he refused to engage with me in a point-by-point defense of his "logic" -- like how writing down Casey's home number proved he was home -- he admitted that so much incriminating evidence against the Republicans poured in near the end of the October Surprise investigation in late 1992, that he requested a three-month extension to evaluate the new material, but was told no.
Yet, to this day, even as the October Surprise cover-up has crumbled in the face of even more evidence emerging from government archives, the story cannot be touched by mainstream or left-of-center news outlets that went with the flow in the early 1990s. [See Robert Parry's America's Stolen Narrative and Secrecy & Privilege.]
A similar example of journalistic cowardice surrounded the issue of Contra-cocaine trafficking and the protection of those crimes by the CIA and the Reagan administration during the 1980s.
In December 1985, my AP colleague Brian Barger and I battled a strongly reported story on this touchy topic through the resistance of AP executives and out to the public, but our story met hostility not just from Reagan's team but also from major news outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Indeed, even when Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, conducted a courageous investigation confirming the AP story and taking the evidence of Contra-cocaine trafficking much further, his report faced ridicule or disinterest from the leading U.S. news organizations in the late 1980s.
So, when San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb revived the Contra-cocaine story in the mid-to-late 1990s -- long after the Reagan team had quit the field -- the vicious attacks on Webb came substantially from the mainstream news media, including the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. After all, why admit earlier mistakes?
Like other brave journalists before him, Webb saw his articles dissected mercilessly looking for any possible flaw, as his editors behind him crumbled in career panic. His follow-up investigation was cut short and he was driven from journalism to the applause of not only right-wing media attack groups but mainstream media "watchdogs" like Howard Kurtz. (In 2004, denied work in his profession and with bills mounting, Webb took his own life.)
The Iraq War Echo
Why this history is relevant today, as the United States commemorates the 10th anniversary of the disastrous Iraq War, is that it was the Reagan administration's success in housebreaking the Washington press corps that guaranteed that only a handful of mainstream journalists would ask tough questions about President George W. Bush's case for invading Iraq.
Put yourself in the shoes of an aspiring Washington correspondent in 2002-2003. Your immediate editors and bureau chiefs were people who succeeded professionally during the 1980s and 1990s. They climbed the ladder by not reaching out for the difficult stories that challenged Republican presidents and earned the wrath of right-wing attack groups. They kept their eyes firmly on the backsides of those above them.
The journalists who did the hard work during that era suffered devastating career damage, again and again. Indeed, they had been made into object lessons for others. Even progressive publications, which wanted some "credibility" with the mainstream, turned away.
In other words, a decade ago -- as in the 1980s and 1990s -- there was little or no reward in challenging the Bush administration over its claims about Iraq's WMD, while there was a very big danger. After all, what if you had written a tough story questioning Bush's case for war and had managed somehow to pressure your editors to run it prominently -- and then what if some WMD stockpiles were discovered in Iraq?
Your career would end in ignominy. You would forever be "the Saddam Hussein apologist" who doubted the Great War President, George W. Bush. You would probably be expected to resign to spare your news organization further embarrassment. If not, your editors would likely compel you to leave in disgrace.
Ugly Outrage
People may forget now but it took guts to challenge Bush back then. Remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks, a popular music group, when they dared to express disagreement with Bush's war of choice. They faced boycotts and death threats.
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