Rise of the 'patriotic journalist'

By Robert Parry

Editor's note
September 11, 2001 and subsequent events threw into sharp focus the shortcomings of the media in the United States. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the media had been been in a steep decline for decades prior to the terrorist attacks, as veteran US journalist Robert Parry documents in the article below.


The apex for the "skeptical journalists" came in the mid-1970s when the press followed up exposure of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and disclosure of the Vietnam War's Pentagon Papers with revelations of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) abuses, such as illegal spying on Americans and helping Chile's army oust an elected government.

There were reasons for this new press aggressiveness. After some 57,000 US soldiers had died in Vietnam during a long war fought for murky reasons, many reporters no longer gave the government the benefit of the doubt.