Iraq has been the most widely reported of all wars. It has projected the most graphic images on to our screens and newspapers. More important, though, it has been a war fought on documents - lots of them - all available now on the internet: all the UN resolutions, all the dossiers, all the inspection reports, all the parliamentary records, all the statements and interviews.

The upshot is we now have two types of public opinion. Those members of the public who have the time to check these source documents for themselves, and form their own opinions, and those who rely on the media to edit and précis this information for them.

The outcome of the Hutton inquiry proved that much of media, in their reporting of the proceedings, could not be trusted to report accurately and objectively on the issue of the war. What is being reported at the moment, as exemplified by the Daily Mirror, further reflects the same irrational anger among many journalists, and that same demand for punishment.

From:
Mike Allott, Chandler's Ford, Hants