Arianna's New Book Shows How Media Ignored 'Downing Street Memo'

Greg Mitchell
The Huffington Post

Arianna Huffington's new book, Right Is Wrong, should revive interest in numerous sins of omission and commission on the part of the mainstream media in the past few years. One episode -- dating from three years ago this month -- that I only touch lightly on in my new book on Iraq and the media gets better play in her book.

You remember the Downing Street Memo? That formerly secret British document which revealed that almost a year before the attack on Iraq the British government had become convinced that the Bushites had "fixed" the intelligence on Iraq to mislead everyone into supporting an invasion?

It became public and widely reported in the overseas press and on blogs in the U.S. (and at my own Editor & Publisher, one of the few MSM spots to cover it early on).

Arianna in her book contrasts that non-coverage in May with the massive attention lavished on the Natalee Holloway disappearance and the Michael Jackson child molesting trial. She even publishes a scorecard by network.

For example, ABC News had nothing on the memo, 42 segments on Natalee, 121 pieces on Jacko. CBS News was even worse, while NBC did better (six whole segments on the memo). For News had 10 segments mentioning the memo -- but 148 on Natalee and 286 on Jacko.

(Continued here.)