The week of Sept. 14 was a busy week for news decisions, media criticism and 20/20 hindsight. The debate: Did newspapers bury a statement from President Bush disputing a link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks?
Here’s the story:
A week after the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush said within a day of each other that there was no evidence involving the former Iraqi dictator. The Kansas City Star ran the Rumsfeld statement on Page A-18 on Wednesday, Sept. 17. A day later, it ran the Bush statement on Page A-15. Some readers voiced their displeasure about the placement of these stories, arguing that they should have been front-page news.
Readers of The San Francisco Chronicle, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Oregonian shared those sentiments. Those papers also did not run these stories out front. (The Fort Worth Star-Telegram ran the Rumsfeld story inside, took the heat from readers and then ran the Bush story on the front page the next day.)
The news industry journal Editor & Publisher weighed in, posting an online story that said the Bush statement got little play in American newspapers. The publication said this was especially significant following a recent survey by The Washington Post that said 69 percent of Americans did suspect a link between Hussein and Sept. 11. The Sunday before Bush and Rumsfeld spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney seemed to affirm the suspicion by saying on NBC’s Meet the Press, that it’s not surprising that people make that connection.
Back to the decision of where to play the story: According to Editor & Publisher, only three of the 12 largest daily papers (by circulation) played the story on the front page. Those were the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Dallas Morning News. The New York Times played it on Page 18. Three other large newspapers The Boston Globe and the two Seattle dailies played the story out front.
At The Star, national and wire editors said several things complicated the decision: The story came over late in the day; in all his speeches, Bush never said Hussein personally was involved, so this admission wasn’t really news; and there wasn’t enough context in the story. Because of these considerations, editors made the decision to run it on one of two pages designated for War on Terror stories. (Later that week, The Star ran an item on Page 2 that dealt with some of the background behind the story.)
Other things to consider include how big a news day it was. A look at The Star’s Sept. 18 front page yields this lineup: Hurricane Isabel; a focus on gun training following OK on concealed weapons; POWs in Iraq; the stock exchange chairman resignation; an abandoned newborn; and a planned barbecue hall of fame. Other than the museum, it was a pretty newsy day.
But one Kansas City reader’s comment goes to the heart of the matter in my view: Bush’s confession deserves the same front-page treatment that all of his (other statements) have received for months on the front page of The Star.
I did a search in The Star’s electronic library for other times Bush gave specific statements about the war on terrorism since May 1, 2003, that wound up on the front page. I chose May 1 because that is when Bush said major combat operations in Iraq had ended. I found 12 articles on Page One, not including non-Bush stories on Iraq, stories on the administration, or analysis pieces.
Does a story that disputes a link between Hussein and Sept. 11 carry the same weight as the president defending his decision to wage war, or an admission to using discredited intelligence in his State of the Union address? No, say Star editors.
Many readers say yes. So do I. There’s enough confusion among Americans on this issue that giving prominence to this statement would have been the right thing to do. But, as the varied placement in other newspapers shows, there’s no easy answer. Clearly, there was no consensus among media organizations.
