Trust in large US news organisations has reached something of a tipping point: more than half of all Americans now view the media unfavourably, and 50 per cent feel that most outlets are deliberately trying to mislead, misinform or else persuade the general public, according to a recent poll.
It's a lamentable situation for US journalists, but hardly a surprising one.
Our new age of polarisation, weaponised by former president Donald Trump and monetised by newsrooms of every political leaning, has made it easy for Americans to shrug off stories they don’t agree with, or simply brand these as fiction.
But today's crisis in confidence has much older roots, dating back to 2002 and 2003.
Back then, the administration of George W Bush was working tirelessly to sell Americans – still reeling from the shock of September 11, 2001 – on the idea of invading Iraq, which had nothing to do with Al Qaeda's terror attacks.
Colin Powell, then the US secretary of state, told the UN Security Council in February 2003 that “evidence” he was presenting proved Saddam Hussein had vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and that this information was backed up by “solid sources".
“These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence,” he said.
Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld had a month earlier insisted that Saddam’s regime had “large, unaccounted for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons” and was pursuing a programme to acquire and develop nuclear weapons.
None of it, of course, turned out to be true.
That a hawkish group of neoconservative officials – who'd long advocated for foreign interventions – were now determined to wage a war in Iraq was hardly a surprise.
But the fact the media failed to properly scrutinise their cherry-picked, misinterpreted or simply made-up intelligence to justify a disastrous war is more alarming.
Instead of reporting the government claims with a healthy dose of scepticism or demanding further proof, a media thirsty for scoops on the biggest story of the era repeated Bush administration justifications until a mainstream consensus of the “truth” emerged: Saddam had WMDs and was primed to use them to attack America or her allies.
The Iraq War: a timeline
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January 29, 2002: US President George Bush identifies Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of an 'axis of evil' in his State of the Union address. 'States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger,' he says. Getty -
February 15, 2002: Thousands of people gather in Hyde Park in London after finishing a protest against war in Iraq. The march is believed to be the UK's biggest ever peace protest. Getty -
March 18, 2003: US and British forces move into position before a possible military strike near the Kuwait-Iraq border. A day prior, Mr Bush gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave the country or face war. Getty -
March 21, 2003: Fires burn in and around Saddam's Council of Ministers during the first wave of US-led coalition airstrikes on Iraq in Baghdad. 'These are the opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign,' he says in an address. The attack begins with a massive air strike campaign named 'shock and awe'. Getty -
March 29, 2003: A man and child walk on a road near the entrance of the besieged city of Basra as oil fires burn in the distance. Baath Party loyalists take up positions in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, making it a target of the US-led war on Iraq. Getty -
April 9, 2003: Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, falls to US forces. Saddam’s regime loses control as American troops enter the city centre. On May 1, US President George W Bush prematurely declares the end of major combat in Iraq. Reuters -
August 30, 2003: A burnt-out car is removed from outside Najaf’s Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest Shiite shrine in Iraq, a day after 87 people were killed in a car bomb attack. The attack raises sectarian tension as thousands of Iraqi Shiites, some of them backed by Iran, demand the right to form militias. Reuters -
December 13, 2003: Ousted president Saddam Hussein is found by US troops in a cellar south of Tikrit, near his hometown. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,' says US ambassador Paul Bremer, who was appointed to lead the Coalition Provisional Authority. AFP -
March 31, 2004: A car burns in the aftermath of an insurgent attack on Fallujah, in which four Blackwater private security contractors were killed and their mutilated, burnt bodies were left hanging from a bridge. Reuters -
May 3, 2004: Coffins of US military personnel killed in Iraq are prepared to be offloaded at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Days later, Al Qaeda beheaded US businessman Nicholas Berg and recorded his killing. Reuters -
June 28, 2004: US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer (R), Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi (C) and the country's most senior judge Midhat Mahmoud (L) smile as the US transfers sovereignty to Iraq in Baghdad. Mr Allawi calls the event 'a historic day' and says that Iraq was 'capable of controlling the security situation'. Reuters -
January 30, 2005: Iraqis vote in the first parliamentary elections of the post-Saddam era. Sunnis largely boycott the vote, while most Shiite parties coalesce into a sectarian bloc, cementing divisions within the country. Getty -
April 7, 2005: Veteran Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani raises his hands after being sworn in as Iraq's first democratically elected president. Later that month, Shiite Islamist Ibrahim Al Jaafari takes office as prime minister, hailing from the exiled Dawa Party. Getty -
July 24, 2005: Burnt-out vehicles at the scene of a lorry bombing outside a police station that killed 22 people in south-east Baghdad. The explosion also injured 25 people, destroyed 22 cars and 10 shops. AFP -
October 19, 2005: Saddam’s trial begins. Prosecutors focus on a massacre in the village of Dujail, 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, where about 150 people, including children, were killed following an assassination attempt against the former dictator. Many other charges relate to a genocidal campaign against Kurds during the 1980s, during which Saddam ordered a chemical attack on the town of Halabja, killing up to 5,000 people. Getty -
February 23, 2006: Iraqis clean up debris after an Al Qaeda bombing at Al Askariya holy Shiite shrine in Samarra, Iraq. Shiite police and militia members — in many cases indistinguishable — responded by rampaging through Sunni-majority areas, in an onslaught that coalition forces appeared powerless to halt. Getty -
June 8, 2006: Maj Gen Bill Caldwell speaks during a press conference as satellite images are shown of a US air strike that killed the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, in a joint US-Iraqi raid. Getty -
December 30, 2006: Saddam is executed by hanging. The execution and taunting of Saddam before his death is secretly filmed by a witness, stirring further tension within Iraq. Getty -
January 11, 2007: US officers watch Mr Bush's speech announcing that another 20,000 soldiers will be sent to Iraq, at Camp Ramadi in Iraq's violent Anbar province. The approach becomes known as the 'Surge,' and envisages a closer partnership between US and Iraqi forces and tribes, as well as American forces being stationed closer to Iraqi communities. Getty -
July 12, 2007: Two Reuters photographers and five civilians are killed by a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad. US video footage of the incident would later be released by Wikileaks. EPA -
December 14, 2008: Mr Bush makes his final visit to Iraq to sign a co-operation agreement between Iraq and the US known as the Strategic Framework Agreement. At a press conference with Nouri Al Maliki, Munthadar Al Zaidi, a journalist, throws his shoes at Mr Bush. Mr Al Zaidi is severely beaten and jailed for six months. Reuters -
February 27, 2009: US President Barack Obama announces Washington’s decision to withdraw most American troops by August 31, 2010. Mr Obama says 50,000 troops will remain for smaller missions and to train Iraqi soldiers. EPA -
April 23: At least 80 people are killed in three suicide bombings in Baghdad, making it the biggest daily death toll since early 2008. A woman standing in a group of other women and children receiving aid reportedly set off one of the bombs. EPA -
December 21, 2010: Iraqi Prime Minister Mr Al Maliki (L) and members of his newly formed cabinet attend a voting session at the Iraqi Parliament in Baghdad, Iraq. The new government was unanimously approved, ending nine months of deadlock. Getty -
JANUARY 8, 2011: Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr returns to Iraq after four years of self-imposed exile in Iran. In his first public statement, he urges his followers to resist the 'occupiers' of Iraq. EPA -
February 25, 2011: A 'day of rage' is declared as tens of thousands of Iraqis protest against Mr Al Maliki’s government. At least 23 people are killed and hundreds injured in a sign of Mr Al Maliki’s growing authoritarianism. Getty -
December 17, 2011: The last of the US Troop Brigade board a plane to depart Iraq at Camp Adder, now known as Imam Ali Base, near Nasiriyah, Iraq. Two days prior, the US military formally declared the end of the Iraq War in a ceremony in Baghdad. Getty -
December 23, 2012: Protests against harsh security crackdowns break out in Fallujah, Ramadi and Tikrit. Sunni protesters say men are being arbitrarily jailed without evidence while the government holds back pensions for former army officers. The demonstrations last until December 2013 when the Iraqi army tries to break up protest camps. EPA -
July 22, 2013: Mourners pray at the coffin of a victim killed during an attack on a prison in Taji, during a funeral at the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. Reuters -
December 22, 2013: Funeral proceedings for a major general of the Iraqi army’s 7th division in Anbar. The division's leadership were killed when a house they are raiding explodes after being rigged with bombs. The mixed Sunni-Shiite group is seen as one of the last non-sectarian units in the Iraqi army. Reuters -
June 11, 2014: ISIS fighters stand guard at a checkpoint in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Days prior, the militants seized Iraq's second biggest city of Mosul as well as Tikrit, hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein, and other towns and cities north of Baghdad. Reuters -
July 9, 2014: Al Nuri Mosque in Mosul before it was destroyed by ISIS militants during their retreat three years later. On June 29, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, appeared for the first time in public at the mosque to declare the caliphate. EPA -
October 18, 2014: Smoke rises over Syrian town of Kobani after an air strike. Three days prior, Washington launched a campaign called Operation Inherent Resolve. Over the next year, the US military conducts more than 8,000 air strikes in Iraq and Syria. Reuters -
November 13, 2015: Kurdish forces seized Sinjar from ISIS after a prolonged siege, in the largest urban battle undertaken by the Kurdish Peshmerga. Getty -
October 16, 2006: Iraq launches US-backed campaign to liberate Mosul from ISIS. EPA -
October 21, 2016: Fire at an oil field that was set on fire by retreating ISIS fighters before the Mosul offensive in Qayyarah, Iraq. Getty -
July 2, 2017: While retreating from Mosul, ISIS destroys Al Nuri mosque. Iraqi forces encounter stiff resistance from ISIS with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, suicide bombers, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty -
July 9, 2017: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi declares victory over ISIS in Mosul. In December, he declares full victory over ISIS. AFP
Mr Bush and his team even managed to connect Saddam, by inference and misdirection, to 9/11. By the time of the March 20, 2003 invasion, nearly half of all Americans thought the Baathist dictator was somehow tied to Al Qaeda's plot, according to a poll at the time.
The attacks “showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes", Mr Bush said on March 8, 2003 in an address to the nation.
“We will not wait to see what terrorists or terror states could do with weapons of mass destruction.”
One oft-cited example of the mainstream media’s failure is the work of Judith Miller, then a reporter for The New York Times. In 2002, the Bush administration leaked to her and a colleague information about Iraq's supposed nuclear programme.
Top Bush administration officials – including Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Powell – then appeared on news shows citing the Times as proof that an invasion was justified. Additional stories followed in the weeks afterwards, many of which also turned out to be wrong.
To be fair, the very definition of a reporter’s job is to write about what the government is saying. And in Miller's case, her paper was hungry for stories about WMDs, not their absence.
We are not cheerleading stenographers, but it takes time to follow up on claims and check to see if official assertions are accurate.
However, much of the mainstream media at the time failed to ask the tough questions.
Swept up in the groupthink of the prevailing narrative – that Saddam had WMDs – the US press underwent something of a systemic breakdown, with some notable exceptions, and has rightly been criticised for enabling a war built on an erroneous premise.
Reporting during the war was also problematic, as the US military handpicked which reporters it chose to embed on missions, leading to an inevitable degree of bias.
In more recent years, liberal-leaning newsrooms have poured endless resources into investigations of Mr Trump that failed to deliver any knockout blows, while the Republican mouthpiece Fox News aired outrageous claims about widespread election fraud even as staff privately said they knew these to be false, according to an ongoing lawsuit.
In the hyper-patriotic fervour that gripped much of America after the 9/11 attacks, debate was somehow seen as dissent, which in turn was seen as unpatriotic.
A rigorous challenge to the government's claims was especially crucial, given that the Democratic opposition party had largely fallen in lockstep with the Bush administration. Instead, the country's watchdog took a nap.
