Andrew Bloeser, Democracy without Democratic Journalism?: A Content Analysis of The San Francisco Chronicle During the Policy-Defining Period Prior to the Iraq War 

Coverage of foreign policy issues in the mainstream media, especially where war or the possibility of war is concerned, has in the past been criticized for containing an over-abundance of official perspectives and over-emphasizing procedural aspects of policymaking.  A content analysis of news articles from The San Francisco Chronicle during the period from August 22 to September 12, 2002 was used to determine whether this criticism is warranted for an important stretch of the newspaper’s pre-war coverage of the most recent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.  Of primary interest was determining whether the newspaper succeeded in permitting differing perspectives in a democratic fashion by providing multiple, competing voices equal space and prominence.   This period was selected because it captures the Bush administration’s initial attempts at making a concentrated public case for war, encapsulating the policy-defining phase of the impending military conflict. Following a model designed by Entman and Page (Bennett and Paletz 83, 1994), I examined the voices (both official and non-official) present in the news narrative and also examined the content of mediated policy arguments with the intent of determining the extent to which substantive and procedural policy arguments entered the news narrative.  I also examined the extent to which arguments supportive and critical of the neo-conservative perspective harbored within the Bush administration were present.  Findings indicate that while a plurality of perspectives did exist in The Chronicle’s news content, much greater prominence was given to neo-conservative perspectives in the Bush administration, while few non-official voices and little substantive criticism of an invasion of Iraq appeared in the news narrative.

Democracy without democratic media?

Central to the existence of an effective democracy is the presence of unfettered political discourse.  Obvious as this may seem, it remains essential for any society aspiring to the highest of democratic ideals that the presence of such discourse not be assumed, but instead questioned.  Given the historic value of the recent military conflict involving the United States and Iraq, and more specifically the potential significance that this event may take on in the collective national memory of many Americans, it seems necessary to expend some effort now to question the health of mediated political discourse before conflict on the battlefield began.  The hope inherent is that some insight might be gained into both the content and the quality of the information that provided the basis for public understanding prior to one of the gravest endeavors a nation’s leaders can pursue, the endeavor of war.  Underlying this intent stands the presumption that in an open society, the ability to freely access and exchange ideas is a virtue that only becomes magnified in its importance during times of crisis.  Though this in no way implies that a truly democratic exchange of ideas actually happens or that multiple, competing perspectives ever enter the public’s view, it does inherently suggest that an examination into the fuel for public discourse is of value.        

One of the most instructive means of conducting such an examination reveals itself in scrutinizing the news media, the institution held chiefly responsible for ensuring the provision of relevant and accurate information vital to the existence of an informed citizenry.  Here, that scrutiny will be applied in the form of a case study on The San Francisco Chronicle’s news coverage of pre-war discourses and activities regarding the alleged threat posed by Iraq.  While there are many different approaches available in attempting to apply scrutiny of this nature, the approach of this study will emphasize the output of print journalism, and will not concern itself with probing the ideological motives of owners, editors, advertisers, or even of journalists themselves.  The reasoning behind this approach is twofold.  To begin with, a study on the ideological behavior affecting the content of news would be beyond the scope of this paper, mainly in terms of feasibility, but also with regards to the conclusions put forth.  Perhaps more importantly, a study of this sort would preoccupy itself with the search for a bias, as opposed to establishing whether multiple, competing perspectives appeared in the news narrative in a balanced fashion.   Accordingly, the tact taken here paid first consideration to the characteristics of news output before contemplating the ramifications of this output on public discourses and public understanding, without a particular political bias in mind.

Kept in mind, however, were the unique features of American journalistic practice and the influences that shape said practice.  The feature of greatest interest here is that journalists in general have “little recourse to independent forms of verification” (Lewis 15).  Phrased another way, journalists lack the means to critically evaluate the arguments of the actors they cover, both in terms of form and content.  Due to professional norms of “objectivity” and “ideological neutrality,” American journalists face difficulties making distinctions between opinion and fact, instead reporting what various actors claim as facts without the ability to assess the strength and validity of such claims.  Thus, with respect to print journalism, the reader is left to decide which set of facts and which actors in the news are most believable.  This makes the matter of which facts and which actors are given the most prominence, and which facts and actors are selected to appear in the news at all, of great consequence.  The logic here is simple and straightforward.  The reader can only assess the believability of what he or see is allowed to see.  Moreover, the prominence given to certain facts and to certain actors, once they become visible to the reader, increase the probability that those facts and actors will be perceived as credible (Terkildsen and Schnell 880). 

Although this dynamic plays out for both domestic and foreign policy matters, there is another dimension to be considered which is unique to foreign policy coverage.  As foreign policy is often interrelated with matters of national security, pertinent information is often tightly regulated by a small number of elite political actors, namely those endowed with official power.  The president and his administration are central among these actors (Bennett and Paletz 83).  Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the president and his administration typically receive great prominence in foreign affairs coverage.  It is this point that Entman and Page examined in their 1994 study of pre-Gulf War coverage—the study from which this one is patterned—by ascertaining the extent to which the media could distance itself from heavy reliance on the administration’s preferred framing of a foreign policy matter. 

The primary question I seek to answer is a more basic one.  My question in examining pre-war coverage of the most recent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is simply one of whether competing policy perspectives received equal space and prominence in the news narrative of one large-distribution, mainstream publication. The answer to which will indicate how democratic in nature that publication actually is, in turn, providing a snapshot of one portion of the mainstream media.  Of related interest is determining the amount of support and criticism that entered the news narrative under examination, along with the type of support and criticism expressed by particular actors.  All this, in sum, reveals the content of the pre-war information available to one segment of the American public, the readership of The San Francisco Chronicle.  While the limitations on the extent to which we can generalize from these findings must be recognized, it must also be acknowledged that the usefulness of the findings in identifying flaws in journalistic practice, which can be found elsewhere in the media, is otherwise unfazed.  To phrase it more profoundly, the findings of this study capture the content and quality of information available to one segment of the public as provided by a major information source.  Thus, the findings can be thought of as one indicator, albeit a small indicator, of the health of American democracy’s substance.

Obstacles to a democratic presentation of the news: A brief review of relevant literature

A simple and universal definition of democracy is a state in which multiple, competing perspectives and interests receive equal opportunity to become actualized.  “The rule of many” therefore comes about through a process in which many perspectives are advanced, and the one that most successfully captures popular support emerges victorious.  At least that is how it is supposed to work in theory.  In a system of representative democracy, such as the United States, the mainstream media plays a vital role in bringing the multiple, competing perspectives of political actors to the public, creating what has been called opinion visibility (Parenti 23).  Thus, for democracy to function properly, it logically follows that the mainstream media must afford equal space and prominence to multiple, competing perspectives.  Yet, arguments abound that the media fail in this respect.

A growing body of research suggests that the reason for this failure is not due to the endemic presence of a particular political or ideological bias in the media but is instead the result of institutionalized journalistic practices.  Where news coverage of foreign affairs issues and in particular, the possibility of war, is concerned, two practices of interest are journalists’ reliance on official information and the proclivity of American journalists to frame foreign policy matters relative to the positions of domestic officials.  Each of these practices— which can be thought of as obstacles to a democratic presentation of the news, in that they reflect a bias toward particular actors and perspectives—have already been examined with respect to the Gulf War of 1991 in the comprehensive book, Taken by Storm (ed. Bennett and Paletz 1994).  In this respect, the book serves an important reference for the research presented in this paper in that the studies it encompasses directly pertain to the American media’s handling of the pervious conflict involving the United States and Iraq just over a decade ago.  Thus, in addition to suggesting areas for further scholarly investigation, the book also provides an opportunity to compare media output regarding two recent conflicts involving the same two nation-states.

Taking first the matter of journalistic reliance on official information, as mentioned in the previous section, the work of Entman and Page indicates that one test of an independent media is the extent to which news coverage transmits views that oppose the preference of the U.S. presidential administration.  The findings of their study on pre-Gulf War coverage indicate that criticism of the administration was presented less saliently and most frequently emphasized procedural aspects of policymaking while the prominence of actors in the news narrative was calibrated to the degree of power they exerted over war policy (Bennett and Paletz 84).  Further, they concluded:

[E]ven at the highest level, all elite sources are not equal…the higher their power to shape newsworthy events, the more attention they receive.  The lower the power, the less attention, even if the substantive information offered might be of great value to a deliberating citizen. (Bennett and Paletz 97)

These findings and this conclusion, although also of importance to Entman and Page’s intent of determining the degree of independence in American journalism, can also be thought more simply as of an indication of how democratic the American media are.  In theory, all voices and all policy perspectives, regardless of their proximity to power, should receive an equal opportunity to be heard.  Thus, even more simply, such findings can also be thought of as one indicator of the health of American democracy in general. 

Turning to the proclivity of the American media to “domesticate” foreign affairs “crises,” the work of Timothy E. Cook in Taken by Storm is also instructive.  Cook’s study of newsbeats during the Gulf War also asserts a test of journalistic independence regarding official sources, of which the primary finding is that the American system of newsbeats privileges domestic perspectives over their foreign counterparts, allowing domestic officials to almost exclusively frame foreign affairs events for the American public (Bennett and Paletz 106).  Cook concludes that this scenario played out in Gulf War coverage for two reasons:

Congress’s reluctance to challenge a president during an international event that was labeled a crisis, and the news media’s chronic dependence upon officialdom to provide the main focus of their work and the sources of their criticism. (Bennett and Paletz 127)

As with the findings of Entman and Page, the study contained in this paper utilizes Cook’s assessment not just as a test of journalistic independence, but also as a test of “journalistic democracy.” 

By utilizing the two studies mentioned in this way, the intent is to both advance the areas of scholarly investigation each study has charted and also to raise a new direction for scholarship in which the conclusions each study has brought forth can be of further service.

Data and method

Using the policy debate preceding the recent war involving the U.S.-led coalition and Iraq as the focus of examination, a content analysis was used to examine news coverage from The San Francisco Chronicle during the twenty-day period from August 22 to September 12, 2002.  In total, The Chronicle ran 30 news stories related to this matter during this time period. 

The period of August 22 to September 12 was selected because it captures the Bush administration’s initial attempts at making a concentrated public case for war, encapsulating the policy-defining phase of the impending military conflict with Iraq.  The objective was to examine a time frame where debate between political elites was expected to be more pronounced than usual, given a controversial issue and its accompanying potential for elite polarization.  With the implication for public discourse being of interest, the desire was to find a period when a diversity of positions might have been expressed, therefore allowing for a critique of how adequately the media, or in this case one publication, was able to reflect that diversity.  The period was also of theoretical interest given that policy-defining arguments emerging during this time had the potential to influence the direction of future policy arguments regarding Iraq and influence what policy arguments would later be considered relevant. Editorials that appeared in The Chronicle during this time were excluded from the analysis on the grounds they did not maintain the pretense of “objective” reporting, but instead tended to be overtly subjective or ideologically-weighted by nature.  The presumption here was that content appearing in the news pages carried a different status of relevancy, although not necessarily a superior one. 

The content analysis itself yielded a total of 402 attributions, defined as statements provided by various political actors present in the news narrative.  Attributions appeared in the form of both direct quotations and statements that summarized the stated positions of various political actors and were coded to reflect five different characteristics.  Of initial interest was the matter of sourcing.  Attributions were coded to identify their source, or the specific actor that provided a given statement.  This made it possible to determine if attributions from one or more actors appeared more frequently or with greater prominence than other actors.  Attributions were then coded to identify whether their sources were official or non-official in nature. Official sources were defined as individuals holding government positions, either elected or appointed, while non-official sources were defined as individuals not holding government positions.  Coding to create this distinction facilitated a test of Entman and Page’s conclusion that the news media maintains a bias toward official information (Bennett and Paletz 93).  As a final consideration regarding sourcing, attributions were coded to identify whether their source was a domestic or foreign actor to test Cook’s “domestication paradigm” thesis.

Beyond the characteristics of sourcing, the content analysis was also constructed to probe for details that would more fully describe the content of mediated policy debate.  To do this, I assessed whether attributions contained procedural and substantive content.  Here, the concept stressed was that while procedural elements of policy activity are not unworthy of coverage, the content of the policy positions being forwarded was also necessary to foster public competence.  Procedural information was defined as being that which focused on the process and politics of decision-making: mentions of the president’s leadership, attributions regarding consultations with other leaders and comments concerning the manner that policy was being formulated and carried out.  Substantive information, meanwhile, was defined as being that which focused on policy options: unilateral military action, conducting weapons inspections, opposing the option of war and other proposals—and the logic used to support them.  In looking at how each type of information was evoked and presented, the intent was to draw a conclusion about the quality of information provided as the basis of public understanding about the matter at hand.

The final consideration given to the content of attributions concerned the level of support and criticism regarding the administration’s policy preferences.  Support and criticism in this period were gauged against the position taken by the neo-conservative wing of the Bush administration, the president himself publicly stating that he had not committed to a specific policy course, aside from seeking the replacement of Saddam Hussein with a democratic successor.  The selection of the neo-conservative policy preferences as a referent was also based on the reasoning that neo-conservatives Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are frequently cited as two of the president’s most influential foreign policy consultants, and are frequently cited voices throughout the period of analysis.  Also taken into consideration was the fact that President Bush became openly accepting to the neo-conservative position as the period of analysis came to a close. 

Regarding why The San Francisco Chronicle emerged as the most viable choice as a news source for analysis, there are a number of reasons.  First, it was desired to examine a news medium that provides a consistent combination of depth and timeliness.  The newspaper format met that criterion.  Second, it was desirable to use a publication of some reputation and with a sizable readership.  The Chronicle, despite being best known for a rather unorthodox period in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, has sought a more serious image in the decades since, especially since being bought out by the Hearst Corporation in 2000.  It also enjoys a readership of 512,129 people (San Francisco Chronicle).  Third, in selecting a specific newspaper for analysis, the primary criterion was a reputation for independent-spirited journalism based on the hope that this would increase the likelihood of finding a wider range of perspectives reflected in print.  As The Chronicle maintained its own Washington bureau, a number of staff writers who covered foreign affairs and a working relationship with the New York Times and The Washington Post this criterion seemed to be adequately met.   Ideally, the study would have made use of The New York Times or The Washington Post themselves, both regarded as prestige newspapers offering the highest standard of journalism in the United States.  Unfortunately, the archives for these two publications proved unaffordable, making the free access to The Chronicle’s archives an appealing feature.  Finally, because the archives had to be accessed via the Internet due to the resources available during the time when research was conducted, it was of great importance to use a newspaper archive that was sufficiently detailed to allow for the most precise content analysis possible.  To this end, The San Francisco Chronicle excelled.  Articles found in its online archive displayed not only the original date of publication that one would expect, but also the section and page number articles appeared on in print.

Findings: Evidence of a domestic official bias in the volume of sourcing

Analysis of news content focusing on potential U.S. action toward Iraq during the period of August 22 to September 12 yielded a total of 402 attributions from sources each official and non-official, domestic and foreign.  Of these, 76.1% were derived from official sources, with 54.7% of total attributions coming from official sources based in the United States.  The Bush administration alone provided 38.6% of all total attributions, with 8% coming from the president specifically.  When compared to the 21.6% of attributions drawn from domestic and foreign non-official sources, the dominance of an official slant in terms of quantity alone is readily visible.  This dominance becomes even more apparent when focusing just on the presence of sources based in the United States, which accounted for over half of all sources.  Among attributions taken from sources in the U.S., a staggering 73% were derived from official sources, with just over half of the attributions again being derived from the Bush administration.  Given that slightly over a quarter of all U.S. derived attributions and only a fifth of all total attributions came from non-official sources, it appears that, at least within the news pages of The San Francisco Chronicle, the perspectives deemed most relevant by journalists, and thus appearing the most frequently to define the parameters of opinion visibility, came from those who resided within the halls of power.  Echoing Entman and Page’s finding on pre-Gulf War coverage, the greater the power over war policy, the greater the visibility in the news narrative. 

An examination of what official sources were saying about the proposed U.S. policies toward Iraq provides more insight.  To examine this, I analyzed attributions to determine the volume of support and criticism for the neo-conservative ambition of military action, unilaterally if necessary, and without a definitive commitment to work through the U.N. or seek Congressional authorization.  Though it should be noted that President Bush did state that he would seek Congressional approval and was slated to make a case before the U.N. one week before the end of the period of analysis, the neo-conservative position still held that another U.N. resolution regarding Iraq was not an effective option nor was Congressional approval legally necessary. 

Against that backdrop, the breakdown of support versus criticism attributed to official sources in the United States and abroad indicated that the volume of criticism prevailed by a margin of 56.2% to 44.8%.  A more critical breakdown reveals that this margin is somewhat deceptive, given that not all sources appeared in the news narrative with equal frequency. 

U.S. official sources appeared more often and were more likely to voice support for neo-conservative preferences.  Thus, while 44.8% attributions contained support for the neo-conservative perspective, it cannot be overlooked that neo-conservatives alone accounted 33.8% of supportive attributions, or 75.4% of their own support in the news.  Further, attributions to neo-conservative sources from the Bush administration slightly outnumbered attributions from all official foreign sources combined.   

To put this into perspective relative to the quantity of attributions from other sources, nearly 87% of attributions drawn from the Bush administration contained support for the neo-conservative policy preference.  Secretary of State Colin Powell provided the only consistent dissent among administration sources, arguing the case of weapons inspections before military action and the importance of seeking broad international approval.  Alternatively, 93.1% of attributions taken from foreign officials contained criticism of the neo-conservative position, mostly pertaining to the neo-conservative preference of military action and the aversion to pursuing U.N. diplomacy for reasons other than facilitating military action.  Criticism from official foreign sources however, comprised 47.7% of all official criticism.  Most official criticism came from Congress, and was a comprised of a much different sort of argumentative reasoning—a difference that is explained later and that appears to be of great significance.  

The volume of attributions from non-official sources is also a telling descriptor, given that attributions supportive of the neo-conservative position were almost one and a half times more likely to appear in The Chronicle’s news pages than critical comments from domestic and foreign non-official sources combined.  In a fashion similar to the case with official foreign attributions, the information and opinions provided by non-official sources tended to overwhelmingly reflect opposition to the neo-conservative position.  Domestic non-official sources provided critical commentary 76.6% of the time, while non-official foreign sources, which were comparatively rarer in print, contained criticism in 66.6% of all cases. 

In short, official attributions dominated, indicating a bias toward official information and official perspectives.  However, all official actors were not equal in this respect, as attributions from neo-conservatives within the Bush administration appeared much more frequently than attributions from any other official actor.  The result of this is that while criticism of the neo-conservative perspective emerged as more prevalent by an 11% margin, the amount of support for neo-conservative preferences was disproportionately represented relative to the amount of support that would have appeared if all relevant actors would have been afforded something approaching equal space in the news narrative.

Findings: Evidence of a domestic official bias as reflected in placement and prominence

An examination of the volume with which different sources entered the news narrative and whether sources were supportive or critical of the neo-conservative position only illuminates part of a larger picture.   Just as the manner in which sourcing is balanced can affect the public perception of the opinion environment, subsequently affecting the basis for public discourse, so too can the context within which attributions appear.  To this end, two factors warrant consideration.  First, there is the matter of the page number on which a news article begins.  Front-page articles are much more likely to be read, and moreover to be deemed important by the reader.  Articles appearing shortly after page one are also more likely to be read and considered significant.  News items appearing on later pages risk losing prominence in the eye of the reader or may not be read at all, regardless of relevance.  Secondly, there is the matter of what information and opinions are displayed most prominently within the article itself.  This is determined in great part by what information is presented in the lead, which typically sets the frame specific to the article.  Also of critical weight in this respect is the juxtaposition of competing pieces of information and opinion that determines the most likely interpretation of the narrative (Parenti 201).  

A few observations prove quite telling on this subject.  To begin with, when taken on the whole, The San Francisco Chronicle worked within Cook’s domestication paradigm.   Sixteen of the 30 news articles The Chronicle ran on the debate preceding the war in Iraq during the period of analysis centered the narrative on the actions or opinions of U.S. official sources, with 14 of those 16 constructed around the actions or opinions of the president and his administration.  Although this means that only slightly more than half of the articles analyzed concentrated on the domestic level, the prominence afforded to these articles was much greater than those focusing on international perspectives.  Articles that took the tact of emphasizing domestic aspects of the debate—such as strife within the Bush administration and the conflict between the president and Congress over seeking authorization for military action—appeared over two and half times more frequently on the front page of The Chronicle than did articles that illustrated the debate on an international level through featuring foreign voices, either official or non-official. 

A similar finding emerged when specifically comparing articles that centered on the actions and rhetoric of administration sources and articles that concentrated on the actions and rhetoric of actors opposed to this perspective.  First, articles relying on attributions from the Bush administration or other conservative foreign policy elites to establish the narrative flow appeared on the front page of The San Francisco Chronicle seven times in twenty days, compared to the two front page articles during that same span where the narrative was primarily driven by fundamental criticism.  Second, an analysis of The Chronicle that looked at the page numbers articles began on revealed that articles focusing on the actions and opinions of the Bush administration in the lead paragraph and the next two paragraphs were most likely to appear on the first four pages of section A.  Half of such articles appeared on page one. 

Conversely, articles that focused on the actions and opinions of dissenting non-official actors were most likely to be placed on page eleven or even deeper into the paper, such as an article on a peace festival drawing 10,000 people to Golden Gate Park, which appeared on page 21.  The policy arguments of foreign leaders, despite being more focused in their message than those of dissenting citizens in the United States, were given similar treatment.  Six articles that either focused on the opinions of foreign leaders or constructed a narrative around international debate appeared in the twenty-day span of analysis, of which four articles appeared on page eight or deeper.  While this again supports the notion of a media outlet operating within the “domestication paradigm” and favoring prominent official sources, this type of evidence only becomes readily apparent after a fairly detailed analysis.  For the average reader, however, a more overt means discerning the prominence of certain sources existed. 

Aside from exposure to the high volume of administration sources that appeared in the news and which played an integral role in shaping the framing of the Iraq issue, readers of The Chronicle were also exposed to a number of articles that explicitly relegated policy debate to a domestic level.  Two articles in particular stand out.  The first, headlined, “Bush camps clash on value of waging war against Iraq,” demonstrates how arguments were given different degrees of exposure just six days into the period of analysis, which began after a speech by the president that called for a democratic successor to Saddam Hussein and left the option for pre-emptive strike on Iraq open.  The first three paragraphs of the article pit the objectives and justifications of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld up against those of Brent Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger and James Baker—each a conservative voice.  The reporter who penned the piece, Doyle McManus of the LA Times, identifies the two camps as the neo-conservatives and the “realists,” and spends the duration of the article astutely demonstrating the lack of further relevant debate in Washington outside of these two camps by citing only one source beyond the inner circle of card carrying Republicans.  Even in doing so, the quote he uses from Clinton Secretary of State Madeline Albright, an argument for containment over a pre-emptive strike, appears 21 paragraphs into the article.

While the article does demonstrate a balance of substantive views between sets of mostly right-leaning policy figures, it also does something far more interesting.  It makes light of the fact that very few prominent Democrats were arguing publicly against the administration as the neo-conservative case was first being posed, allowing the narrative to be controlled by conservatives of various preferences.  One effect of this was spelt out in the line, “the debate over U.S. intervention in Iraq has whirled into full force.  If the answers aren’t clear yet, at least the questions increasingly are.”  To paraphrase, the parameters of relevant debate had begun to form.  To go a step further, actors close to the president molded that form.  One fundamental criticism regarding the selection of Iraq as a target in the war on terror was raised by Brent Scowcroft, a former national security advisor, but outside of that, questions debated were not of “should the U.S. go to war with Iraq” but questions of “how” and “when.”  Even at that, the elite but non-official attributions to Scowcroft could easily be obscured in the eyes of a less than critical reader amidst the more frequently trumpeted rhetoric that favored war or at least maintained that the option of war should become part of policy in some respect (McManus 11).  

The deduction that can be made from all this comes in two parts.  First, an example of The Chronicle’s reliance on officialdom and elite dissensus is clear.  Second, where the balance of news content is an issue, it appears that because of the calibration to domestic power, the opportunity to provide a wider scope of ideological perspectives was undermined, in part due to the lack of opposition from Democrats, which also reflects the reliance on officialdom.  This supports Cook’s conclusion regarding why dissenting opinions were more difficult to find in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Gulf War in 1991.

A second article that demonstrates both domestic and official biases in news content appeared on September 1.  Headlined “A war against Iraq?  Non, nein, nyet!” and subheadlined, “U.S. talk of attack draws worldwide disapproval,” the piece reads like a testament to the concept of false-balance.  Despite opening with a lead paragraph that clearly states the level of opposition present in the opinions of major world leaders, the next three paragraphs focus on the similarities in the rhetoric of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush.  The only difference presented was Blair’s persistence over seeking international support before acting on Iraq in any fashion. To find more fundamentally harsh criticism of the Bush administration’s neo-conservative agenda, one must look to the final third of the article, where the nations of Iran, Kuwait, Pakistan, and France sound off their opposition.  And to find this article at all, a reader would have had to venture 14 pages into section A (Sciolino 14).

Contrast this with a piece that appeared nine days later, but that appeared on page one.  Headlined, “Pundits already at war on Iraq—Conservatives debate tactics against Hussein,” the narrative detailed the most prominent opinions being espoused by individuals on the American political right, conceptualizing the actors of greatest relevance as domestic and not international in scope.  While the narrative does provide clear portrayals of the arguments posited by the neo-conservative wing of the administration and those forwarded by their domestic conservative opponents (Epstein 1), what is not clearly demonstrated is the nature of international opinion.  Admittedly, the scope of the narrative does need to be limited to retain effectiveness and the point of the “Pundits already at war on Iraq” article was to demonstrate domestic perspectives, but underlying this is a simple fact of thematic prominence.   That fact holds that the breadth of international opinions was never given the type of exposure that domestic opinion was, especially in terms of appearing on frequently read news pages.  Thus, in trying to formulate opinions on the Iraq issue, it is more likely that readers of The San Francisco Chronicle had trouble gauging the composition of the debate outside of the United States, and specifically where reactions to the neo-conservative position were involved.  For instance, readers may not have realized that although Arab nations stood against a U.S. led invasion, they supported the return of weapons inspectors, the position championed in the United States by Henry Kissinger.  Readers may also not have realized that even nations agreeing that some type of action needed to be taken against Iraq favored James Baker’s position of seeking a new U.N. resolution, an effort the neo-conservatives had felt was unnecessary.  Looking beyond officialdom, the content analysis also reveals that the mass opinion of citizens throughout the world did not receive nearly as much attention as did elite opinion, and accordingly, was also not as likely to bear an impact on American public discourse as was elite opinion.   

In sum, an analysis of news content from the period reveals not only a bias toward official information, but official information of a particular sort.  As defined by its greater prominence and better placement in the news, U.S. officials and particularly administration officials championing the neo-conservative position received the benefit of that bias. 

Many possible reasons for this can be derived from what was found in the news.  One reason is the fact that officials from the Bush administration, specifically the neo-conservatives, raised the issue of acting on Iraq.  They asserted their rhetoric first thereby providing the impetus for a narrative and moreover, placed any potential critics in the position of responding to that rhetoric.  The neo-conservatives pushing for military action were also individuals in positions of power, in turn making their actions and comments relevant and allowing them to grasp a prominent role in shaping the news frame.  Official criticism from people in similar positions of power was scarcer, however, as few Democratic leaders in Congress engaged the issue from an oppositional angle, leaving conservatives to argue amongst themselves over how to proceed.  The courses taken by political elites were consequently reflected by journalists, who, in aiming to capture the limits of elite political debate, acted in a manner that locked the crux of the news frame around a narrowly defined set of ideas. 

Thus, two things happened.  By domesticating the Iraq debate to significant extent, the news content of The San Francisco Chronicle failed to represent the international context that surrounded the war.  Then, by calibrating the relevance of policy debate to domestic actors either in power or close to power, the debate reflected became skewed and failed to represent ideological diversity.  It was in this way that impetus for public discourse was limited.

Findings: Evidence of a bias toward procedural content in the volume of sourcing

As the findings regarding the volume, placement and prominence of official sources indicate, the mediated discourse reaching the public is defined to a significant degree by how closely it mirrors the discourses of relevant actors in elite debate.  For this reason, a look at how these actors chose to make their case in the news becomes a vital subject for examination.  As already mentioned, the two categories devised to measure the content of attributions found in the news were that of the substantive and the procedural, which in turn were examined to determine whether they supported or criticized the neo-conservative position within the administration on the Iraq issue.  Most attributions, not factoring in their inherent support or criticism, were procedural in nature, as 54.6% directed their attention toward the politics and processes of policy formation as opposed to the merits of a specific policy.  This is noteworthy, for although criticism of the neo-conservative position outweighed support by a margin of 56.2% to 44.8%, procedural and substantive attributions were not evenly distributed in terms of support and criticism.  Not all attributions reflected support or criticism either.  However, 73.3% of all the attributions counted in the period of analysis did, and it is these 295 attributions that receive attention here.

Examining the volume of support given to the neo-conservative position first, what becomes immediately discernable is that the majority of that support, 61.3%, was of a substantive nature.  Substantive support for the neo-conservative wing of the administration also constituted 25.9% of all attributions containing support or criticism, of which the administration itself provided the bulk, nearly two thirds of all substantive support.  The weight of these statistics increases when looking exclusively at attributions taken from sources based in the United States, where again the administration dominated.  Over a third of all attributions from the U.S. reflecting a position on policy exhibited substantive support for the neo-conservatives, the volume of which was in excess of twice the volume of substantive criticism.  Given that U.S. official sources were more likely to receive prominent placement in the news, the effect rendered is that support for a policy toward Iraq that sought military action justified by an alleged link to Al Queda, the potential rise of Iraq as a nuclear threat, and the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction became the most highly visible perspective.

Substantive criticism of such a policy, especially coming from sources in the United States appeared with considerably less volume.  As mentioned, substantive criticism was only half as likely to appear in the pages of The San Francisco Chronicle as substantive support, but another statistic sheds even more light on the imbalance.  An analysis of all sources, foreign and domestic, reveals that 28.2% of all attributions reflecting a policy preference were substantively critical, which is about 1.5 times the volume of criticism found when examining only domestic sources.  On this matter, the difference between the content of official foreign attributions and official domestic attributions is striking.  Whereas foreign leaders were almost as likely to criticize the neo-conservative agenda for substantive reasons as on procedural grounds, criticism from U.S. official sources, which came mainly from Congress, was nearly three times as likely to focus on procedural aspects, such as the president’s initial aversion to seeking Congressional authorization for war and his failure to offer a persuasive explanation for his position.  Yet, while Congress provided 21.7% of attributions coming from U.S. sources, members of the institution posited less than an eighth of the total substantive criticism against the case for military action.  Though this occurrence could possibly be related to the August recess in Congress that took place during the period of analysis, it is more likely a reflection of the political considerations of congressional representatives, as Dick Army (R-Tx.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) both found time to often criticize the president on procedural merits.

Procedural opposition to the neo-conservative policy on Iraq was actually the most frequently found type of all attributions reflecting a particular preference, comprising 29.6% of all such attributions.  This is not a surprising finding when the opinions of all major actors on the international scene receive consideration, given that even Britain, the most stalwart supporter of U.S. intentions, as time passed, often reiterated the need to build broad international support and work through the U.N. to the greatest degree possible.  There were also frequently appearing non-official complaints that Bush had not yet provided a proper justification for acting against Iraq, and as mentioned, criticism derived from Capitol Hill mostly concerned the need for the president to seek congressional authorization.  This wide span of procedural criticism far outweighed procedural support, which comprised only 12% of attributions.  That disparity was significantly less dramatic when examining attributions from the U.S. only, where procedural opposition still prevailed but only by a margin of 25.9% to 22.2%, another telling indication of the sentiment of international opinion toward unilateral action by the United States.

The consequence of these findings is very significant, bearing in mind the events that would occur both during and after the period of analysis, wherein the Bush administration changed its procedural approach, adopting a stance that allayed domestic and international criticism.  On this matter, a conclusion drawn by Entman and Page in their study of pre-Gulf War coverage is of interest.

By focusing the most salient criticism during the crucial issue framing period on procedure, media coverage, we believe tended to soften the edge of opposition and obscure the major issue before the public: was the policy itself wise? (1994, 90)

Indeed, a similar scenario seemed to play out in the late summer of 2002.  Though an examination of the volume in this case shows that while criticism of the neo-conservative stance appeared slightly more frequent, the finding of greater interest is that the amounts of procedural and substantive support and criticism were quite different.  Procedural criticism appeared frequently while little procedural support could be found.  Yet, considerably less substantive criticism could be found, despite allusions to the existence of such criticism abroad.  However, as was the case with the prevalence of official attributions, a measure of volume alone does not tell the entire story.
 

Findings: Evidence of a bias toward procedural content as reflected in placement and prominence 

A review of the thirty articles printed in The Chronicle between August 22 and September 12 reveals that nearly half of the articles, a total of 14, takes the course of establishing a context for the debate rooted in defining the processes and politics inherent in an atmosphere where at least one major international actor was eyeing the possibility of war.  Though such articles often featured an assortment of attributions that were of a substantive nature as well, the narrative appearing in the pages of The Chronicle was most likely to emphasize political motive and policy procedures.  That was true when looking at both articles stressing domestic and foreign actors, as well as for non-official actors.  However, the Bush administration could be identified as the actor of greatest prominence in eight such articles, creating a form of opinion visibility in which the actions of all other actors were most likely to be gauged relative to the said administration.  By contrast, 11 articles displayed a narrative that constructed a substantive context for debate, presenting the policy objectives and justifications of various actors most resonantly.  Of these 11 articles, six devoted attention primarily to the Bush administration, while only three focused primarily on foreign governments, and only one on views espoused by members of Congress.  Like with articles emphasizing the procedural, the breakdown of substantively oriented articles suggests that policy preferences from the Bush administration were more likely to receive prominence.  That conclusion is further supported by the evidence that emerged with regards to the volume of supportive attributions drawn from administration sources.  Only five of the articles analyzed did not discernibly favor substantive or procedural aspects of the debate in the narrative.

Shifting attention to matters more specific, a similar finding emerges. While an assessment of articles appearing on page one reveals that a balance between articles emphasizing procedural and substantive aspects of the debate on Iraq existed in The Chronicle, a prioritizing of attributions that afforded prominence to the arguments emanating from the Bush administration, which tended to be of a substantive nature, is also evident.   Once more, a few illustrations prove illuminating.

A particularly striking example comes in the form of an article on Secretary of State Colin Powell’s dissenting position relative to the administration’s neo-conservative presence.  Headlined, “Powell’s BBC quotes highlight administration’s rift,” the September 2 article places the significant event in a procedural context before the reader even glances at the lead.  This may be appropriate, but certainly no less distracting from what seems to be of greater public importance: a high ranking official advocating a politically viable policy alternative.   For further evidence of the procedural slant one need look no further than the two subheadlines respectively titled, “Powell’s remarks point to divisions on Iraq,” and “President also wants inspections, he says, contradicting VP.”  This much mention of “rift,” “divisions,” and “contradiction,” certainly highlight the conflict imperative to any lively news story, but it also constructs a narrative theme that emphasizes Powell’s policy preference to a lesser degree.  Assisting the distraction are the only two quotes drawn from policy experts, which appear at the end of the article and serve as summary.  Each quote emphasizes discord in the administration, not the pros and cons of Powell’s policy statements favoring the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq before a military response (Kessler 1).     

An article headlined, “Bush to seek U.N. backing on Iraq plan,” also lends help in deciphering some general tendencies found in The Chronicle, as again the procedural takes precedence, as do views attributed to the administration. In this case however, unlike with the article previously mentioned, an approach emphasizing a procedural aspect of international debate seems not only unavoidable, but also quite responsible.  As a substantial amount of criticism had mounted toward the neo-conservative position that U.N. backing was unnecessary, the decision of the president to adopt a different route in pursuing his policy objective stood as a monumental development.  This was especially so when the president’s support for the neo-conservative position had increased through time.   Especially under the circumstances existing on the September 7 date of publication, a change in course of this magnitude by the Bush administration signaled a major change in the landscape of debate.

That concession aside, there was something lacking.  Reflecting an endemic deficiency in the coverage of international debate, the perspectives of foreign leaders, be they of a procedural or substantive nature, were given scant mention.  Meanwhile, the article’s subheadline, “He’ll tell Security Council to disarm Hussein or U.S. will act” summarized the gist of the administration’s revised stance, while several paragraphs were also devoted to administration sources expressing that the change in procedure did not effect the original substantive goal and the belief that working through the Security Council would likely still not be effective.  Nowhere in the article did a nuanced counterargument against the claim that working through the U.N. would be ineffective appear.  Instead, under a heading inside the article marked, “Little Support Abroad,” one paragraph consisting of three sentences is given to denote the Russian, French, and Chinese positions on how the international community should handle Iraq.  Though another sentence identifies that “major foreign leaders have said they disapprove of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, and stressed that the United Nations is the proper place to deal with Hussein,” nowhere do attributions to support or explain this position appear. 

The result of this is that on matters both substantive and procedural, diversity of opinion and opposition to the Bush administration is demonstrated but with no real depth (DeYoung 1).  Thus the average reader, one could reasonably believe, would probably encounter a significant degree of difficulty in formulating a reasoned opinion contrary to that of the administration, given the lack of support provided in the news for that line of argument.  As for a critique more specific to the article, it is only sensible to conclude that while framing a story around a major procedural shift by a vital actor is justifiable, it does not diminish the fact that such a framing de-emphasizes actions and positions of other actors.  More bluntly, it stands to reason that taking such an approach limits the visibility of debate at any level of politics, by consequence, restricting the degree of diversity and plurality of opinion that can reach the reader.

Placing these findings in a context that accents scrutiny of the news media, the same interpretations already discussed once again surface as most probable.  First and foremost, a calibration of news prominence to official power seems difficult to quarrel with.  In articles emphasizing both the procedural and the substantive, the Bush administration proved to be the actor most frequently stressed, while articles stressing the actions and opinions of the administration also proved to be the most highly visible to readers in terms of placement and prominence.  Coupled with the findings regarding the amount of substantive support compared to substantive criticism, findings pertaining to the placement and prominence of articles in the news section of The Chronicle indicate that during the period of analysis, it was difficult to find arguments that challenged the prudence and necessity of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.  As mentioned in the previous section, the allusions to substantive criticism from government officials of other nations indicates, that this perspective existed; however, it simply did not enter into the news narrative with a great degree of frequency or prominence.     

The general findings of the content analysis suggest why this might be the case.  As the findings pertaining to the placement of attributions within news articles strongly suggest, Cook’s assertion that the media tends to domesticate international issues rings true.  This seems to be more than just a simple mirroring of the strength of the United States in international politics, but rather, an indication of the weight given to domestic official sources.  By consequence, this implies that ideological diversity is deemed much less valuable to news content than is the transmission of rhetoric from powerful officials, and specifically those who work in the executive branch.  Further, as domestic officials opposed to neo-conservative preferences vastly preferred to wage procedural criticism, and as The Chronicle’s coverage relied on such officials more so than their foreign counterparts, procedural criticism emerged as more visible than substantive criticism in the news narrative.  As this pertains to the information available for public understanding, the findings indicate that while The Chronicle’s readership could find multiple, competing voices on the issue examined, the attention afforded to those voices was not equal, and not all of the relevant arguments on the issue received balanced attention.  Instead, the voices and arguments most relevant to the debate among domestic officials set the tone for the narrative in the policy-defining of coverage.

Conclusions: The Chronicle’s coverage of pre-war discourses proves undemocratic            

The findings of this content analysis indicate that during the time when policy options for addressing Iraq were defined, the news coverage of The San Francisco Chronicle established the parameters of that debate in such a way that not all voices and perspectives received equal space and prominence.  The actor that emerged as most dominant in the news frame during the policy-defining period between August 22 and September 12, 2002 was clearly the Bush administration, and this revelation, while not surprising, is no small matter.  Any policy-defining period is necessarily a window of time when multiple and varying perspectives need to be presented to the public, and while it is perhaps unfair to expect perfection, it is no less the obligation of the news media to strive to inform the public in this manner.  Effective public deliberation depends on it. 

However, during the time frame studied, The Chronicle did not adequately meet that challenge.  At a time when fundamental debate was just beginning, and the greatest potential for a diversity of potential solutions to a “crisis” situation existed, support for one specific perspective was given disproportionate attention.  The neo-conservative wing of the Bush administration immediately emerged in the news narrative as the actor that would provide the policy argument that all other actors would have to respond to, whether in support or in opposition.  While it is true that criticism of the neo-conservative policy preference on Iraq was slightly more prevalent in volume, it remains important to remember that in terms of prominence and placement, the neo-conservative voice proved the most easily visible and also comprised a third of all the attributions counted in this study.  All of this limited the scope of opinion visibility, in turn preventing a democratic presentation of political discourse.

The examination of the content of attributions and the context they were presented in reinforces this conclusion.  Evidence drawn from the period of analysis revealed that the narrative context supplied by most news articles in The Chronicle was one that emphasized political motive and the processes actors wished to work through to actualize their desired policies.   Moreover, attributions appearing in the news pages of The Chronicle were more likely to reflect substantive support for the neo-conservative position than substantive criticism, and also more likely to reflect procedural criticism than procedural support.  The result of this, as mentioned earlier, is that substantive criticism of the neo-conservative preference of going to war with Iraq was more difficult to find, given the lower frequency and lower degree of prominence that characterized it.  Also resulting from this was the appearance that most relevant criticism to the neo-conservative agenda was procedural, or more specifically, criticism pertaining to the neo-conservative’s initial aversion to seeking Congressional authorization or pursuing a new U.N. resolution before acting. 

Though both results seem likely to have influenced public perception of political discourse, the effect of the salience given to procedural policy criticism appears to be more profound and far-reaching.  History tells us that President Bush did eventually ask for Congressional authorization, which was granted on October 10 and 11 by the House and Senate.  The administration also sought and procured a U.N. resolution allowing the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq with the option to employ force if inspections failed.  Though it has been argued by some critics that weapons inspections were essentially symbolic and that the administration’s objective was never truly compromised, of greater importance to this study is the relationship of these tactical moves to public deliberation.  It seems very probable that because the opinion visibility of criticism emphasized procedural aspects of policy formulation that could be changed without compromising substantive goals, it caused the foundation for continued opposition to the neo-conservative objective to become largely eroded over time.  Once the Bush administration decided to pursue a course of seeking Congressional authorization and, arguably, symbolic U.N. diplomacy, the most highly visible reasons to oppose the neo-conservative desire to launch a pre-emptive strike ceased to exist.  This was already beginning to happen during the period of analysis selected.  The conclusion taken from this is a very simple one.  Not only did the neo-conservatives dominate the policy-defining period, they were also poised to continue their dominance.

Based on those conclusions, it would be easy to misperceive a conservative, or more precisely, a neo-conservative political bias in the news section of The San Francisco Chronicle.  This certainly would constitute a misperception, as there is a major difference between a bias existing in the news section, which would be a commentary on the news writers and reporters, and a bias being reflected in the news section, which is a commentary on the news construction process.  The focus on attributions in this study, for instance, demonstrated that content of news is not strictly controlled by journalists, their editors, media owners, or the advertisers that facilitate publication or broadcast.  To the contrary, the actors that journalists cover also play a sizable role in determining the nature of a news item by providing the actions and opinions that get transmitted in the news.  In the case of this study, the actors supporting the neo-conservative policy more frequently provided substantive comments.  Opponents and critics, taken on the whole, tended to voice objections that were procedural in nature.  Journalists whose work appeared in The Chronicle, in turn, reflected what the actors they covered were saying and doing, producing a body of work that in this case favored the neo-conservatives.  Though this indicates The Chronicle’s lack of journalistic independence, it also indicates that the news-gathering process employed by the newspaper is fundamentally undemocratic.

To again raise the observation that journalists lack a means of independently verifying the validity of claims made by political actors, and thus also lack a means establishing which actors should rightfully be cast as most relevant, this finding is crucial to understand.  Despite lacking a way to determine which actors were providing the information most essential to public deliberation based on truth-value, journalists for The Chronicle selected certain actors to receive greater attention than others.  This means that some actors, and thus some perspectives, were unduly downplayed or ignored altogether.         

Where an imbalance in selectivity can be discerned, a calibration to domestic official power cannot be denied upon reviewing the evidence.  Voices coming from the administration were heard with great volume and frequency simply because they came from the administration.  Voices coming further from domestic official power, including voices from highly relevant foreign officials, were heard with proportionately less frequency, even if their perspectives might have been of importance.  During the period of time studied, the neo-conservatives were the closest to power in the United States, which given The Chronicle’s prioritization of domestic sources over foreign sources and its attention to official sources relative to non-official sources, was a good place to be.  A very good place, in fact, when one considers how little fundamental criticism was voiced from other domestic official actors, namely congressional liberals.    

While enacting some means of selectivity cannot possibly be avoided due to human limitations, selectively emphasizing domestic official sources in the United States ensures the transmission of the ideological flavor exuded from those who control key political institutions.  The bias thus rendered is a product of a news-gathering process that forces itself to depend on official sources, making the process one that depends on elite political dissensus in order to provide a diversity of perspectives.  Therefore, the more critical bias to note is not the indirect neo-conservative bias that can be found in The Chronicle’s coverage of the policy-defining period on Iraq, but instead the more endemic bias upholding the political status quo that comes with defining newsworthiness based upon proximity to officialdom.

The inference to public understanding, at least for those getting most of their news from The San Francisco Chronicle, is plain.  Simply put, limited debate transmitted through the news equates to a limited potential for debate among citizens.  Tragically, the consequence of this only becomes magnified in crisis situations like the one examined here.  Perhaps even more tragically, it is during times of crises that we should expect the most debate to be present and to be transmitted, even by a news-gathering process such as the one currently in place.  The fact that this is not the case—the fact that debate remains largely subdued even in times where an occasion for deliberation is possible— does not bode well for the state of American democracy.  It also signals that the news-gathering process itself may be in need of renovation.  If the output of The Chronicle is in any way a reflective illustration of American journalism as a whole, the prospect that only an illusion of substantive democracy exists in the United States is indeed a very real one.  The solution, it would seem, is the adoption of media practices that self-consciously embrace the role of presenting multiple, competing perspectives in a balanced fashion as opposed to calibrating relevance to domestic official power.  This would require abandoning the overwhelming reliance on domestic official sources to define the parameters of newsworthy opinion to instead explore new methods of depicting ideological diversity.  It would also require a miracle.        

Articles Analyzed by Date

McManus, Doyle.  “Bush camps clash on value of waging war against Iraq.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 28 August 2002: 11. 

Khalil, Ashraf.  “Egyptians bridle at U.S. push for war on Iraq.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 29 August 2002: A9.

Epstein, Edward.  “Pundits already at war on Iraq.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 3 September 2002: A1.

Badkhen, Anna.  “Russia suggests it may use clout with U.N. to block attack.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 3 September 2002, page A8. 

Epstein, Edward.  “Bush to ask Congress for support of Iraq plan.”  The San Francisco Chronicle  5 September 2002: A1.

Warrick, Joby.  “Drones hint at Iraq weapons delivery.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 5 September 2002: A6.

Epstein, Edward.  “Feinstein blasts Bush’s talk of war.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 6 September 2002: A1. 

Slackman, Michael and Jallan Zayan.  “War would ‘open the gates of hell,’ Arab nations say.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 6 September 2002: A13.

DeYoung, Karen.  “Bush to seek U.N. backing on Iraq plan.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 7 September 2002: 1.

Biehl, Jody K.  “Shroeder woos votes by opposing Bush on Iraq.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 7 September 2002: A5. 

Kim, Ryan.  “Peace festival counters war talk.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 8 September 2002: A21.

Fagan, Kevin.  “Somber first anniversary prompts calls for peace and tributes to victims.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 8 September 2002: A1.

Gordon, Michael R. and Judith Miller.  “Iraq said to be seeking ingredients for atom   bomb.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 8 September 2002: A3.

Purdum, Todd S.  “Bush advisors press for action on Iraq.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 9 September 2002: A1. 

Burress, Charles and Jim Doyle.  “Thousands at Oakland, Marin rallies mourn 9/11 victims, condemn attacks.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 9 September 2002: A11.

Sennott, Charles M.  “Grim warning on Iraq threat—It could build nuclear bomb quickly.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 10 September 2002: A1. 

Epstein, Edward.  “Qualified support for Iraq attack—Californians say Bush should get back of allies, Congress.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 10 September 2002: A4.

Donnelly, John and Anthony Shadid.  “Administration hawks see win in Iraq as chance to remake region.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 11 September 2002: A4. 

“U.S. to test Qatar base as Middle East command center.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 12 September 2002: A8.    

DeYoung, Karen.  “Bush to seek U.N. backing on Iraq plan.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 7 September 2002: A1.  10 August 2002.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/07/MN33194.DTL

Epstein, Edward.  “Pundits already at war on Iraq.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 3 September 2002: A1.  10 August 2003.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file?=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/03/MN78263.DTL  

Kessler, Glenn.  “Powell’s BBC quotes highlight administration’s Iraq rift.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 2 September 2002: page A1.  10 August 2003.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/9/02/MN14442.DTL

McManus, Doyle.  “Bush camps clash on value of waging war against Iraq.”  The San Francisco Chronicle 28 August 2002: A11.  10 August 2002.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/28/MN22519.DTL

Lewis, Justin. Constructing Public Opinion: How Political Elites Do What They Like and Why We Seem to Go Along with It.  New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001

Parenti, Michael.  Inventing Reality: The Politics of the News Media.  Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group.  The San Francisco Chronicle.  25 August 2003.  http://www.sfchron.com/about/index.php

Sciolino, Elaine.  “A war against Iraq? Non, nein, nyet!”  The San Francisco Chronicle 1 September 2002: A14.  10 August 2003.   http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/9/1/MN178152.DTL

Terkildsen, Naya and Fauke Schnell.  “How Media Frames Move Public Opinion: An Analysis of the Women’s Movement.” Political Science Quarterly 50 (1997): 879-900.