Quote:
Originally Posted by Rochard
Are you really saying that having a reporter behind the front lines and accompanied by a military censor at all times was better than having reporters physically on the front line with troops with no supervision what so ever?
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Hell yes...not a "censor" or course. You're thinking of the first Iraq war when Peter Arnett was reporting from Baghdad. That's not what I'm talking about.
In Vietnam, the reporters showing what was REALLY happening over there from both sides was what got the country to protest that war.
In Iraq you had the press buddying up with the military. How the hell can a reporter be expected to give the full story if they never see the other side of the coin and are becoming great friends with the people they are supposed to be covering?
Come on...the military, the govt., and the press all together as one big happy family? That is the exact opposite of what a free press is supposed to do.
Ernest Hemingway was on the front lines of the Spanish War and wrote some of the most compelling war time reports in history from what he saw.
More recently the reporters that covered the Vietnam War did the same thing.
The ones "embedded" with the troops? Nothing but nationalistic, glowing reports of how we "liberated" the Iraqi's. It was shameful of the press to do that.