The Op-Ed Alliance
The Wall Street Journal stands accused of committing journalism. We plead guilty.
Monday, February 3, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
The statement we published last week from eight European leaders in support of U.S. Iraq policy has caused much consternation, especially in France and Germany but also among American media ethicists. How delightful, and instructive.
Our sin seems to be that we assisted in exposing as fraudulent the conventional wisdom that France and Germany speak for all of Europe, and that all of Europe is now anti-American. Those ideas were always false, but they were peddled as true because they served the political purposes of those, both in Europe and America, who oppose President Bush on Iraq.
The notion that France and Germany speak for all of Europe is especially absurd, akin to assuming that New York City and Washington, D.C., speak for all of America. Down in the polls, German leader Gerhard Schröder barely speaks for a majority in his own country. The fact that France's Jacques Chirac threw him some anti-American political cover is news, but still a dog-bites-man story of Gallic hauteur. The vote in NATO on helping the U.S. in Iraq was after all 15-4 in favor, with the other opponents being the global powers of Belgium and Luxembourg.
This newspaper has editors based in Europe, and their insight was that the views of the Continent's pro-American majority weren't being heard. In most newsrooms, they call this having sources and a nose for news. That's why our editors decided to solicit an op-ed from the leaders of Italy, Spain and Britain, as Michael Gonzalez explains. The leaders then took it from there, writing the op-ed and gathering signatures from the nations of "New Europe."
The fact that a newspaper would practice such journalism has caused some wonderful exasperation, and even conspiracy theories. The normally serious Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ended its report on Friday with this probing question: "Did The Wall Street Journal really come up with the idea to suggest a declaration by the eight leaders, or did someone lend a helping hand?" The French newspaper Liberation, also scooped on its own turf, wrote that, "The very strong links between The Wall Street Journal and the 'hawks' of the Bush Administration also raise the question of the role Washington played in the initiative."
We admit to having sources in the Bush Administration, among other places, but they had nothing to do with our soliciting European leaders. We've been in favor of ousting Saddam Hussein for years, going back to the Gulf War and long before President Bush made it his policy. If the op-ed by Europe's leaders somehow helped Mr. Bush's diplomacy in addition to selling newspapers, that's fine with us.
We've also come in for some criticism from the usual suspects in the U.S., in particular one Orville Schell, dean of something called Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. The "pro-Bush" op-ed "reminds one of the old adage: 'If you don't like the news, go out and make some yourself,'" Mr. Schell told the Los Angeles Times. We remember when journalism schools taught students how to find a story, not ignore one because it disagrees with their political views. His students should demand a refund.
We admit to committing journalism. And if our critics want to accuse these pages of having so much clout that we can dictate policy to eight European heads of state, we will humbly accept. |
