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Censorship or security concerns?
Published: 28 August, 2009, 01:38
TAGS: Conflict, Military, Scandal, Mass media, USA
The U.S. military has the means to influence news coverage of its forces since journalists are dependent upon them for their security, says Amy Mitchell from the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
“The U.S. media is very dependent upon the military – which is an arm of the U.S. government – to get them into certain places and to protect them to make sure they stay alive when they go there to cover certain things. So the journalists are dependent on the military to be able to get there and to get information. And the military has a very vested interest in that information, in how it gets reported,” Amy Mitchell told RT.
The Pentagon is being accused of trying to censor the news coverage of U.S. forces. Journalists wanting to accompany troops first have their previous work rated in terms of how positive it's been.
Journalists have expressed outrage at a scheme that screens reporters.
28.08.2009, 00:26
Former Gitmo detainee to file suit against U.S. governmentOne of the youngest former Guantanamo prisoners, Mohammed Jawad from Afghanistan, will sue the U.S. Government for compensation, according to his lawyer, Eric Montalvo. |
28.08.2009, 06:39
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U.S. doesn’t give up AMD plansThe U.S. administration has denied allegations that they might cancel the installation of an anti-missile defense shield in Poland. It says the project is still underway, though no final decision has yet been made. |
The Pentagon learned after Vietnam that they should keep reporters close at hand and under control, because otherwise the reporters would not filter their stories through the "chain of command" before publication. That is why reporters were "imbedded" in Iraq and, I suspect, why the hotel housing foreign reporters was shelled by Americans the first week of the war.