Buying the War, the 90 minute special debut of Bill Moyers Journal, examined media coverage of the Iraq War. Norman Solomon was interviewed in the program. A transcript and video of the entire program are online.
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BILL MOYERS: It had now become unfashionable to dissent from the official line — Unfashionable and risky.
BILL O’REILLY: (Fox 2/26/03) Anyone who hurts this country in a time like this. Well let’s just say you will be spotlighted
NORM SOLOMON: If you’re a journalist or a politician,
and you’re swimming upstream– so to speak– you’re gonna encounter a
lot of piranha, and they are voracious. There’s a notion that this is
the person that we go after this week.ERIC BOEHLERT: Fox news and– and talk radio and the
Conservative bloggers. I mean, they were bangin’ those drums very loud.
And– and, everyone in the press could hear it. — not only was it just
liberal bias, it was an anti-American bias, an unpatriotic bias and
that these journalists were really not part of America.DAN RATHER: And every journalist knew it. They had and
they have a very effective slam machine. The way it works is you either
report the news the way we want it reported or we’re going to hang a
sign around your neck.BILL O’REILLY (2/27/03): I will call those who publicly criticize their country in a time of military crisis, which this is, bad Americans.