NEW YORK - March 15 - A year after the invasion of Iraq began, the Sunday morning interview shows all focused on the anniversary. But viewers would have had a hard time finding a debate on the controversial decision.

ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos featured an interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was also the sole guest on Fox News Sunday. CBS's Face the Nation featured Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as well as pro-war New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

Only NBC's Meet the Press showcased competing perspectives, with separate interviews with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, a critic of the Bush administration's handling of the war.

The one-year anniversary of the start of the war provided an opportunity for the networks to reflect on pre-war claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the occupation of Iraq, and the global effect the war has had so far. But a meaningful debate about such matters would have to include forceful critics of the Bush administration.

Instead, the networks' Sunday shows mostly sought out the same administration officials who were responsible for much of the pre-war misinformation. If anything, the interviews served as a reminder of just how little scrutiny the media gave to administration claims about Iraq before the invasion. (See FAIR's "A Failure of Skepticism in Powell Coverage," http://www.fair.org/press-releases/un-powell-iraq.html .)

While network interviewers like to think of themselves as holding administration officials' feet to the fire, in practice the networks seem more concerned to ensure return visits from high-ranking guests than to ask tough questions. Broadcast journalists rarely challenge officials when they give misleading or deceptive answers. (See FAIR's "Another Falsehood on Iraq Goes Unchallenged," http://www.fair.org/activism/powell-inspectors.html, and "PBS Fails to Hold Rumsfeld Accountable," http://www.fair.org/activism/newshour-iraq.html)

ACTION: Please contact the Sunday morning news shows of ABC, CBS and Fox and ask them why, on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, they featured one-on-one interviews with top administration officials, while excluding critical voices. Please thank NBC's Meet the Press for including a Bush administration critic in its invasion retrospective, and encourage the inclusion of more critics in discussions of Iraq.

CONTACT:

--ABC's This Week mailto:thisweek@abc.com

--CBS Face the Nation mailto:ftn@cbsnews.com

--NBC's Meet the Press mailto:mtp@nbc.com

--Fox News Sunday mailto:fns@foxnews.com

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.

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