The report was met with a low-key, sceptical response, or outright silence in the media. There was no horror, no outrage. No leaders were written pointing out that, in addition to the illegality, lies and public deception, our government is responsible for the deaths of 100,000 civilians.
Scepticism is reasonable enough, of course, but there have been no debates allowing the report's authors to respond to challenges. Journalists seem uninterested in establishing whether the government's dismissal of the report might be one more cynical deception. Instead they have been happy to just move on. And to just move on in response to a mass slaughter of innocents on this scale is indeed indicative of corporate psychopathy. As Chomsky says, in their institutional roles, corporate journalists really are monsters.
At time of writing (November 2), the Lancet report has not been mentioned at all by the Observer, the Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Star, the Sun and many others. The Express devoted 71 words to the report, but only in its Lancashire edition. We asked the Observer editor, Roger Alton, why his paper had failed to mention the report. He replied:
"Dear Mr Edwards,
Thanks for your note. The figures were well covered in the week, but also I find the methodology a bit doubtful..." (Email to Media Lens, November 1, 2004)
In fact, the figures were covered in two brief Guardian articles (October 29 and October 30). The second of these, entitled, 'No 10 challenges civilian death toll', focused heavily on government criticism of the report without allowing the authors to respond. The Guardian then dropped the story.
The Independent also published two articles on October 29 and 30. But these were then followed up by two articles on the subject totalling some 1,200 words in the Independent on Sunday.
The Guardian's David Aaronovitch told us:
"I have a feeling (and I could be wrong) that the report may be a dud." (Email to Media Lens, October 30, 2004)
This is the sum-total of coverage afforded by The Sunday Times:
"Tony Blair, too, may have recalled Basil Fawlty when The Lancet published an estimate that 100,000 Iraqis have died since the start of the allied invasion." (Michael Portillo, 'The Queen must not allow Germany to act like a victim,' The Sunday Times, October 31, 2004)
The Evening Standard managed two sentences:
"The emails came as a new study in The Lancet estimated 100,000 civilians had died since the conflict began. The Prime Minister's official spokesman... added that the 100,000 death toll figure could not be trusted because it was based on an extrapolation." (Paul Waugh, 'Blair "did not grasp risk to troops"', October 29, 2004)
The Times has so far restricted itself to one report on October 29. This, however, at least contradicted the growing government and media smear campaign:
"Statisticians who have analysed the data said last night that the scientists' methodology was strong and the civilian death count could well be conservative.
"They said that the work effectively disproved suggestions by US authorities that civilian bodycounts were impossible to conduct." (Sam Lister, 'Researchers claims that 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died in war,' The Times, October 29, 2004)
