If our media is reporting as fact attacks that never occurred substantiated by witnesses who don't exist, then we have a problem. Public opinion about distant events is necessarily based on what is reported in the press. Therefore, we need to be confident that what we read is real. If we have to look at every source with suspicion and fight over every figure, our country cannot make necessary decisions about this war.

That is not to say that bad things don't happen in Iraq — they do. What we need to hear, however, is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth — not lies made believable because they fit in with a preconceived "reality of the situation." Our press owes us at least that much.