From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. This week, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller unveiled the pictures of seven suspected Al-Qaeda operatives to a packed news conference and gave us this terrifying news.

Credible intelligence from multiple sources

indicates that al-Qaeda plans to attempt and attack on the United States in the next few months.

A year ago, this pronouncement might have sent the media into a tailspin of dire predictions,

but not this time.

One reason may be that the government itself sent a mixed message.

Just hours before that news conference, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge appeared on five TV networks

telling the public to proceed with holiday plans and normal routines,

and that the terror alert level remains on yellow.

But news outlets also are more skeptical.

On Thursday, the New York Times ran a front-page teaser for a story on page A-16, titled,

As Ashcroft warns of attack, some question threat and its timing.

High up in the story, it presents the suspicions of police and

firefighter union leaders, supporters of John Kerry, that the warning was meant to distract

attention from the president's poll numbers. It quotes an anonymous administration official

is saying, quote, there's no new intelligence. A lot of this has already been out there.

This is precisely the sort of tempered reporting some media critics wish had occurred in the

run-up to war, and one of them, Slate's Jack Schaefer, has been calling for a correction

ever since. On May 17th, his column had this message for the paper of Records executive

editor, note to Bill Keller. Colin Powell admits he was misled about

...