On February 13, the Washington Post reported that US special forces were already on the ground in Iraq, doing special forces type stuff. The article brought in a lot of flack and the newspaper’s ombudsman has responded. While I’m not in favor of the media putting the lives of US soldiers at risk, I think that this was an important story that was worth reporting. There’s a big difference between massing troops on Iraq’s border and secretly inserting our troops into the country to prepare for an invasion. The source for the story was the Pentagon — if they’re leaking this information to reporters, then we have to assume they have a reason for doing so. The bottom line for me is that I’m going to assume that the Pentagon and the Washington Post have a better sense of what’s OK to report (in terms of risk to our troops) than I do. If nothing else, the editors of the WaPo don’t want to read an article in the Washington Times next week with the headline, “Soldiers Exposed by WaPo Captured In Iraq.”
Media responsibility
On February 13, the Washington Post reported that US special forces were already on the ground in Iraq, doing special forces type stuff. The article brought in a lot of flack and the newspaper’s ombudsman has responded. While I’m not in favor of the media putting the lives of US soldiers at risk, I think that this was an important story that was worth reporting. There’s a big difference between massing troops on Iraq’s border and secretly inserting our troops into the country to prepare for an invasion. The source for the story was the Pentagon — if they’re leaking this information to reporters, then we have to assume they have a reason for doing so. The bottom line for me is that I’m going to assume that the Pentagon and the Washington Post have a better sense of what’s OK to report (in terms of risk to our troops) than I do. If nothing else, the editors of the WaPo don’t want to read an article in the Washington Times next week with the headline, “Soldiers Exposed by WaPo Captured In Iraq.”
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