Posted on 12/17/2005 9:19:30 AM PST by AliVeritas
Not that reporters are particularly trusted anyway, but as a class of people having a high and visible participation in the war in Iraq, dozens of GIs and Marines I’ve spoken with allow as how they just don’t trust reporters.
There was Staff Sgt. Cory Blackwell of Lancaster, recently headed for his second tour in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division, nicknamed the “Ivy Division” and “The Regulars.” Blackwell, 27, is a professional soldier. He holds the customary glum view of professional news gatherers in the Iraq war.
“We tried to stay away from them,” he said. “You had the feeling that whatever you might be doing, they wanted to catch you at something on tape. That would make their career.”
Blackwell related that when the camera crews showed up, some helpful GI in his squad would give directions — directing the crew to the location of a nearby unit. “We’d just say, ‘Hey, go down the street there with second squad ... it’s gonna be awesome.’ ”
When the news crew scurried off on the decoy tip, they were out of the high and tight hair of the unit that sent them packing.
Funny with reporters: If there’s a good one on the ground, the word gets around. It’s similar to how it goes with your congressional representative. People may believe Congress is doing a lousy job, but they like their own congressman who they keep sending back, time after time.
That, in a way, is how it is with the embedded corps of reporters.
(Excerpt) Read more at editorandpublisher.com ...
How freepers view reporters? Like the POS they are.
The majarity of reporters are over there to make a name for themselves, to get a scoop on the bad guys (The US Armed Forces).
When the news crew scurried off on the decoy tip, they were out of the high and tight hair of the unit that sent them packing.
God I love our troops!
With good reason. I don't trust them either.
They are not journalists. They are anti-American propagandists and should be considered legitimate targets.
Does anyone have the photo of the 82nd ABN infantryman flipping the bird to a news photographer? It was great. A bunch of soldiers were resting by a road, and this soldier had his middle finger very surreptitiously raised against his helmet.
The brave and handsome Sgt. Phantom, also in the 82nd ABN, and who has been to Iraq twice, absolutely despises reporters. He said that they were always very rude to soldiers. One of his soldiers at the time allowed a reporter to "quote" him once. Only thing is, the "quote" was anything but accurate, and the reporter pretty much only used the soldier's name and then attributed to him a statement that bashed the Army and it's efforts in Iraq.
I'll bet they couldn't print a lot of the responses they got.
I dream of some day having a media slug stick a microphone in my face on live TV.
Sherman and the Reporter
DALE E. BROWN
Despite the recent successes of embedding, relations between the military and the press sometimes are contentious. Yet even the greatest animosities of our current era seldom reach the depth of the hatred that existed between General William Tecumseh Sherman and the newspapermen who followed his army. Enraged by newspaper listings of the Union order of battle prior to engagements, Sherman banished reporters from his lines and referred to them as “dirty newspaper scribblers who have the impudence of Satan.” A reporter for the New York Tribune wrote that being “a cat in hell without claws is nothing to [being] a reporter in General Sherman’s army.” His brethren were not so kind; they circulated reports of Sherman’s alleged insanity.
The tension reached a head when a reporter for the New York Herald, Thomas Knox, defied Sherman’s orders and forwarded an account of the Union defeat at Chickasaw Bluffs. Sherman had Knox arrested and bound over for court-martial. The reporter responded, “Of course, General Sherman, I have no feelings against you personally, but you are regarded as the enemy of our set and we must in self-defense write you down.” The court found Knox guilty and ordered him banished from the theater. As the Herald was a strong supporter of Lincoln, the President countermanded the sentence on the condition that Sherman’s superior, U. S. Grant, agreed. Grant would do no such thing, and Knox was forced to appeal to the man he defamed. Sherman’s reply:
Come with a sword or musket in your hand, prepared to share with us our fate . . . and I will welcome you as a brother; but come as you now do expecting me to ally the reputation and honor of my country and my fellow-soldiers with you as the representative of the Press which you yourself say makes so slight a difference between truth and falsehood and my answer is Never!
Knox left the theater.
I do. You want me to email it to you? It would be a pita right now for me to upload it somewhere.
Check your FReepmail.
between the press NEVER saying anything good about the Troops or the good they are doing there, and the RAT's here at home saying the Military is BROKEN, CAN'T WIN and are TERRORISTS... they are making Legions of Republicans that will vote Republican till they die.
Hopefully, like this:
I trust them...to give a biased view of the world.
Michael Yon is one of the good guys, and he's one that our troops would put their lives on the line to protect. But then, Michael is a former SF and acts like it. He never endangers the troops and does everything possible to get out the truth.
Nailed it there
Well, I'm not in Iraq and haven't been a "troop" for a good many years, but I would think that the words "scum", "traitors" and "vermin" would come to mind.
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