Journalism at War--Let’s not return to the days.

National Review ^ | 6-15-04

[SJackson]

A year ago, the Pentagon took what many people considered to be a giant risk when it embedded reporters with U.S. units during the march to Baghdad. Old-timers remembered the acrimonious depths to which military-media relations had fallen in the aftermath of Vietnam. The fact was that for a very long time after that conflict, military members believed in their hearts that reporters were part of the counter-culture trying to "get them." Accordingly, the military limited press access to battlefields for over two decades.

The embedding experiment worked — at least for a while. Unfortunately, the media seem to have returned to their old ways. On June 3, U.S. Central Command issued this press release:

COALITION SOLDIERS QUESTION NEWS MEDIA FOLLOWING ROADSIDE BOMB MOSUL, Iraq - Coalition soldiers questioned two news media cameramen and a reporter after a roadside bomb exploded near a Coalition convoy two kilometers north of Mosul June 3.

The media, who were at the scene prior to the attack, told soldiers at the scene they had received a tip to be at that location prior to the attack and they had witnessed the explosion.

There was minimal damage to a Coalition vehicle, a cracked windshield, and no serious injuries.

3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division soldiers requested the media accompany them to a base camp in Mosul to answer questions as witnesses to the incident. The news media representatives left the base camp in the mid afternoon.

This report brings to mind an episode that took place some years ago in the aftermath of Vietnam and went a long way toward cementing the military's negative image of the press. In his book, The Military and the Media, William Kennedy describes this revealing exchange during a military-media symposium:

The moderator of a panel that included Peter Jennings of ABC News, Mike Wallace of CBS, and Marine Colonel George Connell, offered a hypothetical scenario: In wartime, you are invited to accompany an enemy unit that says it will prove that an ally of the United States is committing atrocities. While accompanying the enemy patrol, you find yourself in the midst of preparations for an ambush that may very well cause the death of Americans. Do you try to warn the Americans?

After hesitating, Jennings replied that he would try to warn the Americans. But Wallace responded that he would regard it as just another story and that he would not feel a "higher duty" to warn the Americans. Col. Connell watched this exchange in what can only be described as a cold rage. When asked to comment, Col. Connell said of Wallace, "I feel utter contempt. Two days later those same two journalists [could be] caught in an ambush and are lying 200 yards from my position, and they expect that I'm going to send Marines to get them. They're not Americans. They're just journalists."

I hope we don't go back to this. After the advances in military-media relations achieved by the Pentagon's embedding program, it would be a pity to return to the bad old days of animosity and mistrust.

[jolie560]

People have no obligations to be nice to each other.

[martin_fierro]

"They're not Americans. They're just journalists."

Quote of the day.

	Media Shenanigans/ Schadenfreude
Based on an amused spectator's list Send FReepmail if you want on/off MSP list

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I recall when a Sandinista shoulder fired rocket narrowly missed a plane load of "journalists' on their way into Nicaragua. Ronald Reagan's comment was, "Well...there's a little good in everyone."

[norton]

The author just doesn't get it:
There are more important things than national defense, training and provisioning our troops, avenging 9/11 and perhaps wiping a curse from the face of the earth....

There is an impending election and a Republican incumbant.

[Tamzee]

Thank you for the ping... it was fantastic to see further exposure of both the media snakes in Iraq who failed to warn the Coalition and the snakes Jennings and Wallace stating they would be willing to allow our troops to be ambushed and just film it.

In his book, The Military and the Media, William Kennedy describes this revealing exchange during a military-media symposium

Small correction here... I have the series that includes this panel discussion. It was not simply a military-media symposium, it was a PBS educational series entitled "Ethics in America". Jennings and Wallace clearly flunked.

[Tamzee]

Thank you very much for posting this, I hope it gets spread far and wide!

[BlessedByLiberty]

Once again the Medieval Media proves it has gone beyond distrust of the military, it now openly seethes with utter disdain and contempt.

To the Media soldiers are lower than then whatever species the left champions at the moment.

What a vile, villainous nest of vipers inhabit CBSABCNBCCNNMSNBC!

[Criminal Number 18F]

"They're not Americans. They're just journalists."

The colonel's sentiments are mine, exactly. If I heal enough to do another tour, I wouldn't distinguish news reporters from other enemy forces. They picked their side, let them live with it. Or not live, as the case may be.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[GOPJ]

Prizes are the problem. Prize mentality allowed a photographer to wait for a soldier's death to get the great picture.

Instead of newspapers, see it as a Toaster Factory problem. A toaster factory that's adopted the prize mentality.

Toaster Prizes for best design, most interesting innovation, and speed to the market with any innovative change are called Pewletzzers.... In time safe usable toasters lose to "fashion toast strategies". Winning becomes all. An unintended consequence -- toaster fires becomes common. Safe wasn't a prize category. Design is an inner industry hit.

The public complaines and the Toaster Organization circles the wagons. The "crazies" didn't understand. They were such flyover types.

The public, tired of unusual toasters that don't work state giving up toast. Toaster organizations blame the decline on sales on small toast numbers and continued passing out award winning prized for bigger and stranger toaster designs. ( and ones the public doesn't like - but what do they know)?

Once, an executive was overheard explaining toaster ethics - that if a perfect toaster caused a home to burn down - it didn't diminish the value of the design.