Here's Thomas Ricks (a Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post and the author of "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq") at the World Affairs Council in August 2007, responding to a question about the media's failures in the run-up to the Iraq war (at about 51:30 in the program):

You know, I had an argument about this with Noam Chomsky, the leftist at MIT. He and I were on a radio show together and he kept on going on about the MSM, the mainstream media, this and that. And it suddenly dawned on me, I said, "Professor Chomsky, when you say the mainstream media, what you're really talking about is one thing: the New York Times." And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "I don't work for the New York Times."

(The bare words on the page don't begin to do justice to the smirking condescension of Ricks' delivery, by the way; for that you'll have to listen to the audio.)

Now, anyone who's read or listened to Chomsky at any length knows that this is a complete crock--Chomsky doesn't use the phrase "MSM", and he certainly doesn't restrict his reading to the New York Times. So I decided to find out whether Ricks was making this up, or just mangling the facts beyond all recognition.

The radio show Ricks was referring to was "Open Source," hosted by Christopher Lydon. Lydon conducted an hour-long interview of Noam Chomsky and to a lesser extent Ricks in August 2006. The specific exchange Ricks is referring to goes like so (at about 30:00 in the program):

LYDON: The media didn't ask many questions either [before the Iraq war], and it's given--the last month--a pretty blind eye. RICKS: I think that's one of the great myths of our modern times, that the media didn't ask questions. We asked questions, we didn't get answers. We wrote stories. I wrote a story a month before the invasion, I asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, "You don't know where the WMD is, do you?", and he said, "No, but I'm confident that once we cross the border the Iraqis will show us." I wrote these stories, Walter Pincus wrote these stories. Now, yeah, the New York Times screwed things up to a fare-thee-well, but you're painting with a pretty broad brush if you say "the media". LYDON: Fair enough, Tom, I stand corrected, but I do--I am a New York Times refugee, and reader. But-- RICKS: Well you should expand your reading base. LYDON: I stand corrected.

So Ricks' version of what "Chomsky" said is not only miles off the mark, it didn't even involve Chomsky; rather, these were Christopher Lydon's views that Ricks was mischaracterizing. Ricks had already asked Chomsky several direct questions and had had lengthy exchanges with him (and Lydon sounds nothing like Chomsky), so Ricks certainly would have known who he was talking to at any given time.

And it's not that these were the only views about the media expressed during the radio show, and so Ricks might understandably have made a simple mistake about the source. In fact Chomsky explained in detail his own views on the media's performance before the Iraq war, in direct discussion with Ricks. Here's a small excerpt of what Chomsky actually did say (starting at around 35:00):

CHOMSKY: I agree with Tom Ricks that the media, in a professional sense, did their job. I suspect the Russian media did too [regarding Afghanistan in the 1980's]. They described the catastrophes, they asked who was responsible, etcetera. ... [To Ricks] While I agree with you about the reporting--you know, there are brave, serious, honorable reporters there, and people ask questions like "Where are the WMD?", but they didn't ask the question, "Do we have the right to commit the supreme international crime?" If anyone were to compare the treatment of the Afghan war in Pravda with the treatment of this war in the United States, I think it would be very similar.

Or in other words, not only did Chomsky not "go on about the MSM, the mainstream media, this and that," but he actually agreed with Ricks, twice--albeit with the kind of deeply illuminating analogy that is his hallmark. And Ricks was responding to (or arguing with) Chomsky throughout this discussion, as you'll see if you listen to it for yourself. So Ricks got a crystal clear summary of Chomsky's views of the media--yet he somehow managed to quote, attribute, and summarize them completely incorrectly.

I spared you the tail end of Ricks' quote from the World Affairs Council (at the top) for as long as I could, but now I'm afraid you must suffer as I have. Here's what followed Ricks' reality-free swipe at Chomsky:

I stand by my coverage. Are there stories I wish I'd written differently? Yeah. Are there stories I wish I'd written more than once? Yeah. But if you go back and read the Washington Post, we did a pretty bang-up job during the run-up to the war. And my answer to the American people is, don't blame the media--look in the damn mirror. The information was available. Don't blame it on the media.

Yes, given the above demonstration of his journalistic rigor, I'm sure that Ricks did (and continues to do) a bang-up job of giving the public all the accurate and complete reporting they need to make informed decisions, and so we should all stop blaming Thomas Ricks. The American people thought there were WMDs Iraq? LOOK IN THE DAMN MIRROR. The American people thought Iraq was in cahoots with al Qaeda? LOOK IN THE DAMN MIRROR. The American people expected to be crushed under the anvil of Iraq's awesome power unless Bush attacked Iraq first? LOOK IN THE DAMN MIRROR! It's not Thomas Ricks' fault that the American people can't keep the facts straight! Thomas Ricks reported it all and then let the American people decide! The American people got it wrong? STOP BLAMING THOMAS RICKS! MIRROR! MIRROR! LOOK IN THE DAMN MIRROR! GEHAAFAFERRRRRAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Whoa, sorry. Got carried away there for a second.

(For some examples of Thomas Ricks' bang-up job of giving the American people all the information on Iraq, see this Nexis-flexing article by Jonathan Schwarz.)

I'd highly recommend that you take an hour to listen to the entire Open Source radio interview with Chomsky (and Ricks). Not only is it filled with useful information, it's also worth hearing for yourself the contrast between the shallow, mainstream pomposity of Ricks' views and the humility and depth of knowledge that Chomsky displays in dismantling them. Ricks is badly outclassed, and he comes out of it looking like a second-rate Thomas Friedman--which is, I suspect, a large part of the reason that his mind decided to rearrange this embarrassing bit of history to make "the leftist at MIT" look worse and him look better.

