In an interesting post on This Modern World, Jonathan Schwarz points out what may have been wrong with the news coverage in the lead up to the Iraq War when no one was questioning the very questionable "intelligence" the Bush Adminstration was putting out to the American people. In an interview with Anderson Cooper, CNN's Congressional Correspondent, Jessica Yellin, pretty much pointed the finger at the corporate executives (at MSNBC, her former employer)for the poor coverage in the lead up to the war:

"When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings. And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president."

Wow.