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Complacency in War: Indexing and the Role of the Media in theLead Up to the Invasion of IraqJack Michael StephensJournalism 464Professor TabbMay 18, 2007
 
Stephens 2It has now widely been acknowledged by many academics and journalist thatduring the lead up to the Iraq war the media became lax in it’s supposed “watch dog role”in scrutinizing the government in it’s case for war. Because of this many within the public perceived the war as a just war and even thought that Saddam Hussein had a directconnection to 9/11.
1
Instead of blaming the public for lack of attention to the media andinstead of espousing the (what must be comforting to journalists) idea that the Iraq War was a journalistic anomaly that can easily be corrected with tighter ethical standards, Iargue that the passivity of the press towards the Bush administration was actually of itsown making and is embedded within the culture of today’s journalism. One of the mainreasons for this passivity has to do with what is called “indexing;” indexing is how journalists get (and what they perceive as) sources. Journaliststend to ‘index’ their reporting to the views of the political elite and other official sources (Bennett, 2003b, 2004). When there is consensus amongthe elite sources, the likelihood that journalists will investigate an issueand push for answers is rather low, with the result that the media agenda isset by government officials rather than by journalists or editors.
2
 Because the agenda is set by the government instead of the journalists the media will tendto give to the public what the elite want the public to be feed. In issues of domestic policy, sources in the government (as well as non-government elites) tend to disagree onmany issues, yet when it comes to international policy many within the government andthe elite tend to agree with each other much more. This is turn leads to a lack of diverse
1
Steven Kull, “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War.”
 Political Science Quarterly
118, no. 4 (Dec. 2003): 571-572.
2
Daniela V. Dimitrova and Jesper Strömbäck, “Mission Accomplished?”
International Communication Gazette
67, no. 5 (Oct. 2005): 403.
 
Stephens 3opinions in the news (whether it be print, television, or radio). In the case of the lead upto war many in the media chose to use this standard form of reporting. Coupled with alack of drive to actually delve deeper into the issues of the invasion, being spoon-feedfaulty intelligence on Hussein’s government, and presenting a lack of sources to the public, the news media inadvertently (as well as in some cases intentionally) became amouthpiece for the Bush administration in the removal of Hussein from power. In this paper I will present evidence from previous studies on news organizations here in theU.S., and abroad, in order to show how indexing indeed was an important factor in thenews media’s “mistakes” in reporting the lead up to war and how it influenced the public’s opinion to help support the Bush administration’s goals for Hussein’s removal.First, a quick explanation of indexing. In a study in 1973 Leon Sigal examinedthe structures of news organizations that related to how reporters got their informationand their interactions with their sources. “Because reporters cannot witness many eventsdirectly, they ‘must locate themselves to places where information is most likely to flowto them.’”
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 Because of this news organizations embed their reporters in the institutions of government. So they will have reporters in the Pentagon, the State Department, theWhite House, etc. Because of this most of the news organizations concentrate all of their efforts in the elite political circles of Washington D.C. to get their sources and stories.“Officials in a liberal democracy typically do not speak with a uniform voice; there arevariations in elite consensus on important policy issues.” With indexing, reporters andthe media tend to cover stories that mirror the debate within elite circles with “whom
3
Steven Livingston and W. Lance Bennet, “Gatkeeping, Indexing, and Live-Event News:Is Technology Altering the Construction of News?”
 Political Communication
20, no. 4(Oct./Dec. 2003): 365.
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