Buying the War

How big media failed us

In 2003, the United States pre-emptively attacked Iraq in a war that would last for eight years claiming an estimated 189,000 lives, costing over $2 trillion and causing untold economic and emotional devastation for the Iraqi people. In this 2007 documentary that originally aired on Bill Moyers Journal, Moyers investigates big media’s role as cheerleader in the clamor for war in the months preceding the March 19, 2003 invasion. How did the mainstream press get it so wrong in the run-up to the Iraq War?