And journalists wonder why people hate them: in this article, BBC world affairs editor John Simpson whines that the deaths of journalists in the recent battle in Iraq were all the US military's fault, and guess why:
Simpson blamed the deaths of many of the journalists - what he called "the ultimate act of censorship" - on the system of embedding, which meant that journalists operating independently of US and British troops became "potential targets".
(Emphasis mine.) Jesus H. Christ, the military is damned if they do and damned if they don't, aren't they, you whinging, puling twat? As a commenter in Jeff Jarvis's post on this pointed out, the news media complained during the first Gulf War on how they weren't told anything, didn't get to go to the battle, yadda yadda blah blah blah. Now this dickhead comes along and starts grousing about how being put in the middle of the battles as they requested got some journalists killed. Guh. What I should have said was (thanks to Angie Schultz for alerting me to my gaffe) : he starts grousing about how embedding reporters in the war somehow endangered all reporters especially -- somehow embedding a reporter in one place caused the deaths of others not so embedded. Well, dopey, you had a choice: some reporters get to go to the front, or no reporters get to go to the front. No, they all couldn't go to the front. I'm sorry of that sounds too much like your grammar school teacher telling you that you couldn't get a hall pass, but tough. And I'm also afraid that there never will be any special protection for any journalist who puts themselves into a warzone; at least, not any more than any other noncombatant gets. Yeah, gee, media passes aren't bullet and bomb deflectors, so whaddaya know! Asshole.
Also, I just wanted to add that it's too bad reporters got killed, but he basically seems to be claiming that the US military deliberately targeted reporters they didn't like. Yeah, better have some evidence to back that up, newsboy.
Posted by Andrea Harris at June 28, 2003 04:56 PMNo, he's complaining that journalists who weren't embedded were "potential targets". Unfortunately, the article doesn't give a breakdown of all the deaths he's talking about, so I don't know how correct his accusations are.
Simpson himself was involved in an incident where American planes fired on a Kurdish unit by mistake. That was a real screw-up, and you can say that that sort of thing happens in a war, but it was still a screw-up.
The incident at the Palestine Hotel, which is another of his examples, is much less clear-cut. Basically, he's complaining that the US military is not omniscient.
He's a big fan of Harper's and Lewis Lapham. Shortly after September 11 Simpson came to New York to check things out, and he primarily talked to Lapham, who explained that it was all our fault.
Nope, no bias from Simpson of Kabul. (Whenever Simpson's name is mentioned, so should his liberation of Kabul, 'cause it makes him squirm.)
Posted by: Angie Schultz at June 28, 2003 at 05:36 PMActually, I did notice that, and saw that the way I wrote my post didn't convey that, but I was hungry and ran off to get food. Then I got stuck on the road behind a non-moving train. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...
(No, seriously. I'll rewrite the post to be a little more clear.)
Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 28, 2003 at 08:31 PM"...the military is damned if they do and damned if they don't". What else is new? Military is bad, because war is bad, do I need to tell you this?
Posted by: Alisa at June 28, 2003 at 10:06 PMNah. I just keep thinking how my parents always taught me that I shouldn't complain because the world didn't revolve around me. Silly old fashioned people that they were.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 28, 2003 at 10:13 PMEmbedding made it possible for journalists to see the fighting "up close and personal" without taking horrendous risks, though a few embedded reporters were killed. Certainly, embedding didn't make the war any more or less dangerous for non-embedded reporters. They faced the usual risks of wandering around a war zone.
Of course, traditionally, foreign correspondents hang out in the best hotel in the major city and talk to each other. And drink. Occasionally, they interview their translator and driver. Leaving the hotel is known to be very dangerous, but staying at the hotel is supposed to be safe. Unless the war comes right to the hotel.
Posted by: Joanne Jacobs at June 29, 2003 at 05:28 AMMy Drill Instructer, a Gunnery Sergeant veteran of, among other fights, Iwo Jima, told me to never worry about the bullet with my name on it. Instead I should try to avoid all those bullets marked 'to whom it may concern'. Ditto shrapnel, the chunks of metal flyin' around .
Reporters really ought not act surprised to discover that wars are dangerous. A tiny percentafe of the various odd and ends of flyin' metal are aimed at a clearly identified target. Once a bomb or shell goes off the shrapnel is completely blind and deaf, no matter how 'smart' the bomb is, what it hits it gets. A massive percentage of rifle fire is not aimed at a clearly identified bad guy, either. It's thrown in the general direction of cover the bad guy might be hiding behind, or the sound of a sniper's shot, things like that. In Viet Nam it was one dead bad guy for every 100,000 shots. I would suspect Iraq to have a better ratio, if only because of better visibility (no jungle), let's call it ten times better, that leaves 9,999 bullets flyin' around for every one that punches the ten ring.
There is also the little problem that there's a technical term for an infantryman who waits too long to identify something moving out there in a combat zone. It's KIA.
It's not surprising that reporters were killed, what's surprising is how many didn't.
The next US invasion should be started with a wave of reporters air-dropped into heavily defended areas. We can even give them parachutes.
Posted by: Robert Crawford at June 30, 2003 at 02:41 PM