Monday, January 12, 2004

According to Slate's Today's Papers, this Washington Post article and it's accompanying article in the LA Times were "stuffed." A major military institution (The Army War College) finds enough merit in a scholarly report criticising the War on Terror to publish it, and the director of the College doesn't shy away from its conclusions. Seems like an important contribution to the national discussion. The War on Terror is our single biggest policy concern right now, especially in it's all-digestive capacity of including the occupation of Iraq, airline security, myriad domestic activities of the Justice department, and our entire foreign policy. A credible and thorough military criticism of it seems newsworthy.
Why is it stuffed? Well, this isn't news, it's just a report--and there are more important, timely items for the front page. I haven't seen a paper copy of the Post yet, but judging from their website, war-human interest and election politics stories dominate, with an important opener about the new Federal airline passenger tracking system. This kind of big picture, policy item is going to get stuffed during what is anything but a slow news day. But now is precisely the time when a policy report like this should not get stuffed---we need analysis and perspective over a wide range of data precisely when we are facing too many issues, not when we have the leisure to read such reports comfortably.