The Toppling: How the Media Inflated the Fall of Saddam’s Statue in Firdos Square – ProPublica

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The Toppling: How the Media Inflated the Fall of Saddam’s Statue in Firdos Square

How saturation media coverage of the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Firdos Square fueled the perception that the war had been won and diverted attention from what in reality was just the start of a long and costly conflict.

via ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-toppling-saddam-statue-firdos-square-baghdad

The media have been criticized for accepting the Bush administration’s claims, in the run-up to the invasion, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The W.M.D. myth, and the media’s embrace of it, encouraged public support for war. The media also failed at Firdos Square, but in this case it was the media, rather than the government, that created the victory myth.