From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

Brooke Gladstone is out this week. I'm Carrie Nolan.

Prosecutors say Army scientists. Bruce Ivins was the anthrax killer.

There are 20 pieces of evidence.

The prime suspect committed suicide.

A remarkable news conference this afternoon at the Department of Justice. The government declares suicide. A remarkable news conference this afternoon at the

Department of Justice. The government declares Dr. Bruce Ivins as the only person responsible

for those anthrax attacks. But with the suspect now dead, the government will never have to

prove that case in court. The FBI and Justice Department's evidence against microbiologist

and biodefense researcher Bruce Ivans was compelling

and convincing. Enough evidence, they said, that they believed they could prove his guilt to a jury

beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course, there will be no jury trial because Ivan's committed suicide

last week, and while the government's case against him is a strong one, they've been perhaps

forced to make it in the media. But the media narrative around the anthrax case hasn't always been

one of a sociopathic scientist. Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald is a critic of the media

coverage over the years and says, regardless of Ivan's guilt or innocence,

the media have failed in covering this story skeptically going back to 2001.

Much of the discussion in the media early on was very much along the lines of this is the

second phase of the attacks by Islamic terrorists on the United States, and early on there emerged

the question as to whether or not specifically Iraq was behind the anthrax attack, and that came

to dominate how these attacks were discussed early on.

Now, in October of 2001, the ABC News investigative unit did a story about the anthrax letters. They used anonymous sources in that piece linking the type of anthrax in the letters to Saddam Hussein's regime. In your view, how did the ABC story shape the media narrative about the anthrax letters in those early days?

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