Falling on deaf ears?

The Falls-Church News Press reports:

“Helen Thomas, arguably the nation’s best known print journalist and dean of the White House press corps, told a Falls Church audience last week that ‘there is a lot of soul searching going on now’ among news professionals about uncritical coverage since 9/11 of the Bush administration and its policies.

“‘The press has rolled over and played dead,’ Thomas said of its behaviour in recent years. ‘Our main weapon is scepticism. It is our indispensable role to protect the people’s right to know,’ she said. But it failed to live up to that role in recent years.

“Thomas, speaking to the monthly breakfast of the Democratic Business Council of Northern Virginia, said that in the wake of 9/11 ‘reporters pulled in their horns. It was felt that tough questions of the president were un-American, and this continued as the administration segued from 9/11 into Iraq.’

“‘Every single day,’ she said, ‘We heard 9/11 linked with Saddam Hussein by the administration. Reporters were scared to rock the boat. But everyone in the White House press room knew this president wanted to go to war.'”

I don’t think too many journalists in Australia are “soul searching.” There’re more than happy to be stenographers for those in power.

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