Hitchens on journalistic consensus

Christopher Hitchens gives a glimpse into the groupthink of journalists:

I am not a war correspondent, though I have put in some time at the Europa Hotel in Belfast, the Commodore in Beirut, and other places of journalistic legend such as Meikles in Harare and the Sarajevo Holiday Inn. In any case, the emergence of a consensus among a press corps is something one can witness without having to duck the occasional incoming projectile.

It reminded me of all the questions to President Bush in his last press conference about whether he would apologize, a la Richard Clarke.

One doesn't have to be an "old hand" to detect the signs of a conscience collective or, if one doesn't care for it, a "herd mentality."

I've always wondered why, when this phenomenon is so obvious to readers and viewers, the press continues to deny that it exists.

I continue to be amazed at the way in which so many liberals repeat the discredited mantra of the CIA to the effect that Saddam Hussein's regime was so "secular" that it not only did not collaborate, but axiomatically could not have collaborated with Islamists.

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