Editor & Publisher has a piece up concerning the New York Times excoriating the White House for distorting Iraqi intelligence while, failing to acknowledge The Times' own complicity in hyping the threat.

Sure, the piece is accurate..as best as I can tell, but it wasn't just The Times that was guilty of not fact-checking sources, and data mining on exiled Iraqis such as the nefarious Ahmed Chalabi.

Pre-war reporting from almost all quarters was equally guilty. The Times does have a special place in American journalism, and should be held to the highest of standards.

Judith Miller is of course at the center of this finger pointing maelstrom. She was The Times' head cheerleader prior to the war, and an embed with Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, the U.S. military group sent into Iraq to search for WMD.

There were lots of people that knew about the real nature of Iraq's likely capability. But these people weren't going to sway the Bush Administration's pre-determined plans for war.

The foreign press was much better. If you search through the early archives of this site, there are numerous articles from the foreign press that directly contradicted the public statements of Bush Administration members.

The tacit 'contract' the White House and reporters seems that you'll be granted access as long as you don't veer from the script.

Just try and do some real investigative reporting like Seymour Hersh did in this New Yorker piece critical of Richard Perle's alleged war-profiteering and you just might get smeared with the label of, "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".

Worse yet, your vaunted White House 'unnamed officials' will no longer return your calls, or like long time White House reporter Helen Thomas, you'll be relegated to the back row during White House Press Conferences.

I am not writing this in any way to forgive the conduct of most of the American press corps. American journalism, with a few wonderful exceptions values speed over accuracy, and shine over substance. The consolidation of American media into corporate giants where quarterly profits are paramount would lend credence to speculation that American journalism is likely to get even worse.

So, while William Jackson gives the NYT a needed browbeating, it is clear that The Times' behavior is a snapshot of an endemic issue with American journalism. One which doesn't appear likely to be solved anytime soon.

Contributing to this article was, well, no one. :)