I want to thank the great blog Think Progress for bringing this story to attention, because it involves one of the most important issues there is -- freedom of the press. Of all the freedoms provided us by our Founding Fathers, perhaps the most important is freedom of speech and the press. That's because this is the freedom that protects and insures all of our other freedoms.
It seems that the United States military doesn't think freedom of the press is very important. It looks like they have decided to allow only those reporters who write "positive stories" about the military to be able to be embedded and report from the front lines with the soldiers.
To do this, they have hired The Rendon Group to investigate any reporters asking to be embedded. They have a $1.5 million contract with the Defense Department to do "news analysis and media assessment". They screen the reporter's writings and report on whether they have been "positive", "negative" or "neutral" toward the military.
The military says they have not denied access to any reporter because of what was learned in the Rendon Group's investigation, but that is not really true. Just last month, a Stars and Stripes reporter was denied the ability to embed because he "refused to highlight" good news.
This is a very dangerous precedent, and if it is allowed to continue it will affect the ability of the American people to get the truth about what is going on in a war zone. I can understand the military being embarrassed by negative stories, but that cannot trump the right of the people to know the truth.
There is only one valid reason to bar any reporter from a war zone. If the reporter releases secret information about combat operations that endanger the soldiers involved in that operation, then he should not be allowed to embed (and probably should be prosecuted). But that should be the only exception to freedom of the press in a war zone.
Reporters should never be judged by whether they report "positively" or "negatively" about the military or what it doing. If things are not going well, a negative story may be necessary to get the truth to the American people. Pressuring reporters to write only positive stories about the war effort (and that's exactly what this is) will result in a skewed "rose-colored glasses" view of the war and the military.
That's not news -- it's propaganda. President Obama should step in and stop this immediately.
You need to remember that the freedom of the press, exists as part of the USA's policy, and since the war correspondents are NOT on USA territory, this 'freedom' doesn't go with the correspondent who is on foreign land.
ReplyDeleteAs a retired marine, I can assure you that when I was doing my 2 tours of duty in Vietnam, there were security risks; risks that come from having non-military 'reporters', who might very well provide information to the MSM in the United States, that should have been kept from the media because no civilian reporter has the entire 'facts' in any war-setting, and mis-information is worse than no information.
For the security of the military personnel and the citizens of the United States, information coming from war zones or even information about maneuvers and other 'statistics', should be carefully managed.
With the carelessness of the media in this day and age, I'm grateful to know that measures are being taken to minimize their access. Given the way the most recent untruths about health-care reform (as an example), when you see the negative results of inflammatory and erroneous reporting, I'm relieved that actions are being taken, to refrain from stories being written about the military - good or bad.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate enough to be embedded with the US Army during the troops surge last year. I can honestly tell you that the military was more than accomadating in every way. I had access to anything and everything while I was there, and the US Army went out of their way to make sure I had everything I needed to do my job and stay safe.
Prior to my embed, there was no question about what light my stories would be held, and I was given no direction while in Iraq, or otherwise. In fact, the reports I published were not even reviewed by the military before they went on the air.
The only restrictions given to the press are very carefully spelled out to avoid putting troops in danger. So anything involving troop movement prior to the operation, weapon capability, or troops strength at specific locations are restricted, as are the photographic of checkpoints.
Other than that, the press has 100% access.