How's the media supposed to know when government officials are lying to them? If the government says "our intelligence says that Iraq has WMDs" that's news. They can't independently verify something like that, so should they not report it because they can't see the WMDs or call Saddam and get his confirmation? The consumer of the media has to bear some responsibility for knowing what things do and don't come with the ability for independent confirmation.
The media is self-correcting however - when they find out the WMD story is full of holes, they report it. When they find it was all based on one informant, who had reason not to be trusted, they report it. Too late for the war that got started, but if a government is going to lie to the world to start a war, the media refusing to report what they say because they can't verify it or say "well you've lied to us before so we are going to assume everything you say is a lie" isn't going to stop them.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
