ABSTRACT
Along the way, rather than being a means to avoid war, diplomacy became a way of laying the media flagstones for the Iraq war. Washington’s maneuvers at the United Nations were integral to public relations efforts for domestic and foreign consumption. In practice, one of the key steps toward starting a war is to go through the motions of diplomatically exploring peaceful alternatives. For many American journalists, diplomacy is indeed war by another means. Three weeks into 2003, a front-page story in the Washington Post reported a speech of the Secretary of State Colin Powell who had said that the relevancy of the United Nations depends on it taking a firm stand on Iraq. At a pivotal stage, during the weeks just after the midterm election in November 2006, the New York Times news coverage of Iraq policy options was often heavy-handed, with carefully selective sourcing for prefab conclusions.
