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Media Commentator Paul JanenschIn his memoir, “What Happened,” former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan calls the national news media “complicit enablers” of the Bush administration’s push for the invasion of Iraq. Is that a fair criticism? Media commentator Paul Janensch gives us his view.

McClellan wrote that the national press corps was “probably too deferential” to the administration when the nation was facing the decision of whether to go to war in Iraq. I think he’s right. But many high-profile news media figures took offense at McClellan’s words. Other journalists said McClellan had a point.

Anchors Katie Couric of CBS, Charles Gibson of ABC and Brian Williams of NBC were asked about the McClellan book last week when they appeared together on the network morning shows to promote an upcoming cancer research telethon. I think their varying opinions neatly summarize the mixed reactions of national journalists to McClellan’s accusation. Couric, who was host of NBC’s “Today” before the war began, said the lack of skepticism shown by the news media about the case for war was “one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism.” But Charles Gibson, who was host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” back then, disagreed. He said, “It is not our job to debate them” - meaning the administration. “It is our job to ask questions.” Brian Williams, who was on MSNBC at the time, said that in the early days of the war Pentagon officials got through to him “the minute they heard us report something they didn’t like.”

I agree with Couric. It WAS embarrassing. Gibson was correct that journalists should not debate with officials and should ask questions, but they should not confine their questions to members of the administration. They should have questioned experts who doubted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Some did that. One of those journalists was Charles Hanley of the Associated Press. Others worked in the Washington bureau of Knight Ridder newspapers - now McClatchy newspapers. None of them was a “complicit enabler.” Unfortunately, their stories did not reverberate across the country because they did not work for The New York Times or The Washington Post or the TV networks or the cable news channels.

As for the Brian Williams complaint about angry phone calls from the Pentagon - So what? He and many other journalists forgot something basic. They were not working for the administration. They were supposed to be working for the public.

Media commentator Paul Janensch is a former newspaper editor who teaches journalism at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. You can read his column Sunday in the Connecticut Post of Bridgeport.