Michael Fumento has just written one tough piece on the MSM coverage of Iraq. In my mind, Fumento can say whatever he wants, he’s walked the walk, as a soldier and as a reporter
Covering Iraq: The Modern Way of War Correspondence
Would you trust a Hurricane Katrina report datelined â??direct from Detroitâ?� Or coverage of the World Trade Center attack from Chicago? Why then should we believe a Time Magazine investigation of the Haditha killings that was reported not from Haditha but from Baghdad? Or a Los Angeles Times article on a purported Fallujah-like attack on Ramadi reported by four journalists in Baghdad and one in Washington? Yet we do, essentially because we have no choice. A war in a country the size of California is essentially covered from a single city. Plug the name of Iraqi cities other than Baghdad into Google News and youâ??ll find that time and again the reporters are in Iraqâ??s capital, nowhere near the scene. Capt. David Gramling, public affairs officer for the unit Iâ??m currently embedded with, puts it nicely: â??I think it would be pretty hard to report on Baghdad from out here.â? Welcome to the not-so-brave new world of Iraq war correspondence.
Further down in the essay, he mentions a friend of Pundit Review who’s been there, done that,
But Patrick Dollard, with no military training, left a cushy job as Oscar-winning director Steven Soderberghâ??s agent to bunk down with Marines in Ramadi for seven months to film a documentary series (still being edited) that he hopes will show the real war and the real warriors.
He sure did. Listen to Pat Dollard’s interview on Pundit Review Radio here.
During that interview, we took the most unforgettable call we have ever received on Pundit Review from an Army wife and mother, you won’t believe the emotion!
Our friend Michael Yon has an entirely different take on embedd reporters in Iraq, laying the blame squarely on the military, not the media. Here is Michael’s column which is published in this week’s Weekly Standard.
Censoring Iraq
Why are there so few reporters with American troops in combat? Don’t blame the media.
Many blame the media for the estrangement, but part of the blame rests squarely on the chip-laden shoulders of key military officers and on the often clueless Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad, which doesn’t manage the media so much as manhandle them. Most military public affairs officers are professionals dedicated to their jobs, but it takes only a few well-placed incompetents to cripple our ability to match and trump al Sahab. By enabling incompetence, the Pentagon has allowed the problem to fester to the point of censorship.
You can listen to Michael’s many appearances on Pundit Review Radio by clicking here and looking in our milblogger archives.
These are two tough guys who have written two tough pieces, each placing the blame for the lousy coverage of Iraq on different forces. They are both well worth your time.