ARE THERE lessons to be learned from the way Iraq was reported in much of the Western media in the build-up to the invasion and its immediate aftermath? Were journalists in Britain and the United States effectively collaborating with their governments when they unquestionably accepted the official claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction? After the Iraq experience, do journalists acknowledge that they need to treat government "sources" with greater scepticism?

These were some of the questions raised during a debate on Journalism after Iraq at Oxford University on Monday to launch the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism that will be a part of the university. Around the table were some leading practitioners of the trade — Leonard Downie, Executive Editor, The Washington Post; Wadar Khanfar, Managing Director, Al Jazeera; Helen Boaden, Director, BBC News; and the Oxford academic, Timothy Garton Ash, who said that because he also dabbled in journalism he was often described as someone who had "one foot in each grave."

The panellists as well as the audience — comprising academics, writers, broadcasters, and politicians — were conscious that the Western media did not exactly distinguish themselves in the way they reported the early phase of what is still euphemistically referred to as the "Iraq conflict" rather than by its proper name: naked aggression. Few Western journalists, especially in America, were even willing to acknowledge that there could be a credible Iraqi viewpoint, and anything coming from Iraqi sources was instinctively dismissed as a "lie."

Mr. Khanfar recalled that in the weeks before the invasion the Iraqi Government invited all Baghdad-based journalists to visit the site which Colin Powell, the former U.S. Secretary of State, had in his famous presentation at the United Nations in February 2003 described as a "bomb factory." Here was a chance for them to see the place for themselves and check out the truth. But most Western journalists refused to go dismissing the offer as propaganda.

"We at Al Jazeera accepted the offer, filmed the site and put it on the screen showing that it was not a bomb factory," he said.

Mr. Khanfar said there was too much reliance on British and American sources, and absolutely no attempt even to listen to what the Iraqis were saying. But, as subsequent events showed, it was Mr. Powell's "intelligence" claims that proved to be a lie.

Mr. Downie agreed that there were "lessons to be learned" from Iraq. He admitted that his own newspaper, The Washington Post, should have been "more aggressive" in questioning the Bush administration's claims about WMD.

He said: "The news media have been correctly criticised for initially failing to penetrate the Bush administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction in pre-war Iraq and its allegations of ties between Saddam Hussein and international terrorism. Reporters at The Washington Post did detect scepticism about these claims among some sources in the intelligence communities and the military. But those sources understandably refused to be identified, and the stories that we did publish about their scepticism were not given the same prominence in the newspaper as the administration's claims. That turned out to be a mistake, for which I accepted responsibility."

However, he pointed out that post-invasion the media's performance was "much better" with The Washington Post and other news organisations documenting the failure to find Mr. Hussein's imaginary WMD "long before the Bush administration acknowledged it."

Widespread bias

In Britain, too, the media bias against Mr. Hussein was widespread and ran very deep, but there were journalists who did question — and questioned sharply — the government version. In fact, the BBC was embroiled in a huge row with Downing Street after it ran a story suggesting that the government had "sexed up" intelligence to exaggerate the "threat" from Mr. Hussein.

Ms. Boaden recalled that she was in America at the time and she was struck by the climate of "patriotism" which was then sweeping that country. There were no sceptical voices in America, she said. In comparison, the British media displayed a more robust approach to government claims. The U.K. media never "fell" for the allegation that Mr. Hussein had links with Al-Qaeda, she claimed.

The man from The Washington Post, however, appeared to question Ms. Boaden's claim.

Professor Ash, who writes for The Guardian and has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq invasion, warned that all fundamental principles of good journalism — fairness, balance, independence, and accuracy — were under threat not only from governments but also from a range of other quarters such as faith groups and other assorted lobbies.

As an academic and a journalist, Professor Ash recognises that journalists should continue to see it as an important part of their mission to "speak truth to power," but he also believes that given their growing power, the media too need "truth spoken to."

Incidentally, there is an Indian connection to the Reuters Institute: it is headed by an Indian journalist and academic, Sarmila Bose, who described it as a "partnership" between the academia and journalism. Her intention, she said, was to focus on the "hard questions" facing the media in the modern world. For starters, how about a close look at the changing face of the Indian media and the challenges it faces?

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