After 20 Years, Will US News Media Finally
Reckon with Its Role in Selling the Iraq War?

Norman Solomon / Media Education Foundation

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq on March 19th, we should expect to see countless stories in US news media about how “intelligence failures” and Bush administration deceptions led us into a prolonged and disastrous war that killed thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians.

But if past is prologue, we should also expect to hear little to nothing from outlets like Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times about their own decisive role in enthusiastically selling this criminal war to the American people.

This is one of the best anti-war films I have ever seen. Produced by The Media Education Foundation, it is based on my book War Made Easy and narrated by Sean Penn.
Below you’ll find a selection of MEF films that tell this crucial but mostly forgotten side of the story.

Included are our bestselling 2007 film War Made Easy, which takes a deep dive into US news media’s craven complicity in amplifying the Bush administration’s lies, and our brand-new release Theaters of War, which tells the longer-range story of Pentagon efforts to manipulate public perceptions of American militarism though Hollywood films.

Taken together, these films help make sense of how corporate news media, popular culture, and official government propaganda not only converged to sell the murderous US war in Iraq, but also continue to pave the way for America’s “forever wars” to this day.

You can watch these films on the Kanopy streaming platform if your university or public library subscribes to our collection (click here to see). You can also purchase them on DVD, get a 7-day streaming rental, or host a public virtual or in-person screening.

Clip from War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death.

Films on US Media and the Selling of War
War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2007), featuring journalist and author Norman Solomon, traces recurring patterns across five decades of US war propaganda and corporate media complicity, from Vietnam to the Iraq War

Watch The Entire Film here: https://youtu.be/jPJs8x-BKYA

Theaters of War 
NEW RELEASE! Roger Stahl’s explosive new film Theaters of War explores how a mostly hidden, decades-long partnership between Hollywood and the Pentagon has helped glamorize and sell America’s forever wars while greasing the wheels of a war machine presided over by billion-dollar arms dealers.

War Made Easy
War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2007), featuring journalist and author Norman Solomon, traces recurring patterns across five decades of US war propaganda and corporate media complicity, from Vietnam to the Iraq War.

Hijacking Catastrophe
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire (2004), released at the height of the Iraq war, provides a time capsule of how neoconservatives and other war hawks exploited the fear and anxiety unleashed by 9/11 to pursue imperial policies abroad and repressive policies at home.

Beyond Good & Evil
Beyond Good & Evil: Children, Media & Violent Times (2003) explores how children were affected by US media coverage of 9/11 and the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, placing special focus on the simplistic good-versus-evil narratives and tropes propagated by the Bush administration.

Independent Media in a Time of War
Independent Media in a Time of War (2003), featuring award-winning journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, dissects corporate news media coverage of the earliest days of the Iraq War, revealing a disturbing pattern of complicity and a total failure of journalism.

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