Dereliction of duty

The war in Iraq is now more than six-and-a-half years old. We don't know how it will end. But we do know how it began. We know now that this country was led into a long, costly, and controversial war based on premises that were stated publicly with great certainty yet turned out to be false. The study by Leslie H. Gelb, with Jeanne-Paloma Zelmati, in Democracy ("Mission Unaccomplished," Issue #13) is a valuable addition to the material that has been accumulating in the public domain about how the press performed, or failed to perform, its role in challenging these premises. Gelb and Zelmati focus on the reporters, but the editors deserve as much, if not more, focus. Granted, I don't think a lot more critical front-page stories in these "elite" newspapers would have stopped the march to war. But that should not be the concern of editors. It is also true, of course, that you can't put every story on the front page. But the front page displays a newspaper's best judgment about what issues matter that day, and when you appear continually to fail to grasp the significance of stories, especially as the country is getting ready for war, you let down your readers.