New York Times: We’re Preventing The Military From Getting Their Message Out

Thursday, May 31, 2007

New York Times: We’re Preventing The Military From Getting Their Message Out

By Rob on May 31, 2007 at 12:10 pm

And one of their Baghdad correspondents, James Glanz, is proud of it:

As the number of reporters there dwindles further and further because of the difficult conditions we work under, the kind of work they are able to publish becomes very important,” Mr. Glanz said. “This tiny remaining corps of reporters becomes a greater and greater problem for the military brass because we are the only people preventing them from telling the story the way they want it told.

I wasn’t aware that it was the place of reporters to be a “problem” for the “Military brass.” I also didn’t know that it was their job to stop anyone, military or otherwise, from informing the public.

But that attitude is just part of the arrogance of today’s media. These journalists see it as their responsibility to decide what is and is not news, and what you should and should not know.

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I’ve got a copy of Ernie Pyle’s “Brave Men” on my bookshelf, and I don’t seem to remember it having any pictures of corpses.

Robert Perry on May 31, 2007 at 01:36 pm

Bat One
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The New York Times is still the Democrat Party’s newspaper, even if it is no longer America’s “Paper of Record.” And while the Times no longer speaks for, or to, the average American, there other whose point of view the Times has no interest in addressing either. From AP, via Fox:

BAGHDAD — A battle raged in west Baghdad on Thursday after residents rose up against Al Qaeda and called for U.S. military help to end random gunfire that forced people to huddle indoors and threats that kept students from final exams, a member of the district council said.

U.S. forces backed by helicopter gunships clashed with suspected Al Qaeda gunmen in western Baghdad’s primarily Sunni Muslim Amariyah neighborhood in an engagement that lasted several hours, said the district councilman, who would not allow use of his name for fear of Al Qaeda retribution.

Casualty figures were not immediately available and there was not immediate word from the U.S. military on the engagement.

But the councilman said the Al Qaeda leader in the Amariyah district, known as Haji Hameed, was killed and 45 other fighters were detained.

Clearly a substantial number of Iraqis want the US military to stay and defeat the Al Qaeda terrorists. For those on the Left, all those purple fingers from elections past represent an inconvenient truth… to coin a phrase.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Bat One on May 31, 2007 at 05:15 pm

But that attitude is just part of the arrogance of today’s media. These journalists see it as their responsibility to decide what is and is not news, and what you should and should not know.

That’s got to rank among Rob’s stupidest pronouncements. He doesn’t think journalists should be allowed to report the news as they see fit. Of course, it’s the journalists’ job to decide what’s newsworthy. That’s not arrogance.

Rob, freedom of speech and a free press are important components of a functioning democracy. If the press happens to stray from the Pentagon’s scripted talking points, well, that’s just too bad.

Will on June 1, 2007 at 06:41 am

Rob
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Well of course there should be freedom of the press. I’m not saying that the government should dictate what reporters report.

I am criticizing many journalists, however, for seeing their job as one where they tell stories (reporting news that matches the story, ignoring news that doesn’t) instead of just informing the public of fact.

That’s a problem, and if the bias of the media in this regard didn’t cut your way you’d be complaining with me.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

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