In the year after September 11, the American press largely stopped asking hard questions just as the Bush administration built its case for invading Iraq. Bill Moyers hosts this account of how that happened, tracing the run-up to war through the newsrooms that covered it. Walter Isaacson, then running CNN, is shown directing staff to pair footage of Afghan civilian deaths with reminders of the World Trade Center, a memo the film treats as a hinge moment for how far patriotism pushed scrutiny aside. Reporters Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder appear as the exception, having filed stories questioning the administration's WMD claims that most major outlets ignored in favor of anonymous officials and confident anchors. Colin Powell's UN presentation and the front-page certainty of papers like the New York Times get replayed against what those sources actually knew at the time. Moyers interviews the journalists and editors involved directly, letting them explain, and sometimes defend, decisions that helped move the country into a war built on claims that turned out to be false.