[WOSG]

The fact that he is even asking about 'tainting' by being with US soldiers shows that the journalistic professional has their heads up you-know-where so long, they have lost all perspective on common sense.

The news is about telling us *what is going on* - I dont WANT a "balance" between the world-view of Saddam and his killers and our Marines - I want the story! How are OUR boys doing? Are WE winning or not? Good jounralists dont lose their biases, they just manage to NOT let biases get in they of telling us the FACTS.

This lunacy of 'balance' between the US and some foreign dictatorship really gets my goat. We all know how UNBALANCED the Boston Globe is when it comes to pro-life vs pro-choice, or conservative vs liberal (they wear their bias on the front pages), so why is this 'balance' question so pertinent only when we ar fighting a war with lives at stake? Why are they desperately fighting do the RIGHT thing, and simply report in a way that is supportive of our country? Is it a hidden agenda opposing the war?
Or simply Liberal obtuseness posing in the old "we are objective" garb?

This is why the journalistic community is wrong - and knows it - when they bleat about an 'objective press'. There is no such thing, never was and never will be. All media has a viewpoint. But given a choice between FoxNews cheerleading vs BBC gloom-and-doom spreading, i'll pick the one on *our* side - which btw happened to give the more accurate picture of how the war was really progressing.

This guy did a good job as an embed reporter, and is second-guessing himself due to destructive things he's been 'taught' in journalism school. LOL!

[CaptRon]

Did we sell our souls as journalists for access to the death and destruction at the front lines?

In all of the debate about this (reporters calling them "our" troops, reporters wearing American flag pins) the underlying assumption seems to be that unless you are reporting negatively about the U.S. you aren't being "objective".

Maybe it's just me.

[cake_crumb]

It's not quite as great and blunt as 'Screw them. They weren't there,' the immortal (I hope) answer to the rear-echelon intel-LEKKKK-TUUUUUUULE's back home who will ask whether front line reporting is somehow tainted by the soldiers the front-line reporters are traveling with in order to report from the front lines....

But it's good nonetheless. Welcome to the real world, Mr. Nelson.

[Consort]

These newly enlightened embeds are being accused of "succumbing to the military mystique" by their liberal elite colleagues. For many liberal embeds, this was their first exposure to real Americans and it will have an long-term impact.

[Gefreiter]

"I had lived so closely for so long ... with the ... Marines, fighting their way through Iraq, that I began to think and feel like a Marine. "

I read that and almost choked. I was a soldier, not a Marine, but I think it takes a big set of balls to claim that you know what being a Mairne is all about after spending a month as a hanger-on.

Furthermore, Nelson can move on to other assignments soon, wherever his career takes him. Meanwhile, many of the Marines he "served" with will remain in Iraq for some time, finish out multi-year enlistments, re-enlist, etc.

Marines will be having sand with their MREs for a good long time after this guy's back in Boston.

[McGavin999]

Welcome to the real world Scott. Just don't lose the new knowledge you've gained.

[Nick Danger]

The next issue of The American Enterprise features an article by the magazine's editor in chief, Karl Zinsmeister. The AEI was the only conservative-movement organization whose publication was awarded an "embedded reporter" slot for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

You can read an excerpt of the article here, and you can also order the issue on-line from that page.

[Senator_Blutarski]

What is most interesting to me about these "how being imbedded changed me" articles is how the authors seem to imply that they have somehow gone over to what they had openly regarded as the dark side. --And they are surprised that the US military is neither evil nor bloodthirsty. These people were clearly not prepared to find that reality didn't match their deeply harbored prejudices.

Obviously, it is possible to break through the Ivy League brainwashing. It is sad that it takes a war to do it.

[Sloth]

I wonder if I was the first person to use 'Stockholm syndrome' to describe the change in embedded reporters:

Antiwar obscenities

---

To: sam_paine

Whatdya bet that reporter now believes in Missile Defense?!?!?!? Vicky Clark is a frekaing genius if this was her idea.

Yep... with their weak minds, journalists are easy pray for a sort of military Stockholm Syndrome, where high-stress, dangerous situations cause them to begin to identify with their enemy -- Americans.

12 posted on 03/27/2003 4:30 PM CST by Sloth

---

[RichInOC]

Embedded reporter comes away from front lines torn

Don't ask, don't tell.

[harrym]

A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.

[Search4Truth]

The Liberals will be blaming these battlefield conversions on the Stockholm Syndrome.

[harrym]

A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.

[mil-vet]

Over time, it was inevitable that we would begin to view at least some things from the grunt's perspective.

Like, this is a BAD thing?? "Stockholm syndrom"?? How 'bout REALITY?? Why isn't he PROUD of ponting out the point of origin of the ambush instead of apparently questioning what he did (or did I miss something - am I just being overly sensitive about a media type??)?

Seems to me he is trying to defend his actual grasp of the reality of what he was reporting with the liberal, touchy-feely BS of his know-nothing liberal media scum peers (much worse than "rear-echelon" types!).

VERY interesting post - thanks!!

[Plutarch]

We'll all await with bated breath to read a journalist's navel gazing story about whether they are getting "too close" and perhaps biased in favor of liberal activist groups.

[rabidralph]

"Did we sell our souls as journalists for access to the death and destruction at the front lines?"

Funny, they're not as introspective when cozying up to Hollywood and liberal politicians.

[Maigrey]

The question is whether the coverage I provided during the war was tainted as a result.

There is nothing wrong for a embedded reporter to question his objectivity. Where I have a problem with it is thinking that his employer is objective.

I hope that this reporter also saw the good that the US military did, and can appreciate the cost of the freedoms afforded those that were freed, and the continued freedoms we have.

[alisasny]

How can reality be tainted?

[TopQuark]

Did we sell our souls as journalists for access to the death and destruction at the front lines?

A morally lost person: when you describe an event from a more informed position, you do not necessarily sell your soul (that is optional).

Moreover, as most journalists nowadays, he has an overly elevated sense of importance: who expected him to report, while embedded, on the pros and cons of war, analyze our strategy, or critique diplomacy?

He was embedded with the troops and was supposed to report what he saw. And from the trench you see nothing strategic at all: you see details, individual people and machinary. That's all. JUst write what you see --- honestly and completely. Leave it to us to integrate this information.

This idiot thinks that, since he did not interview Iraqi soldiers before thet died, he lost objectivity.

[Vic3O3]

poing