Re: The Game is Over

["Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Smyth" <ssmyth@suscom.net>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>; "Aaron Read"
<aread@speakeasy.net>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 7:09 PM
Subject: Re: The Game is Over


> My journalism professor read an e-mail from one of his former students (a
> Washington Post non-embedded reporter who was over in southern Iraq until
> last week) yesterday basically saying that the Pentagon wasn't allowing
the
> "real" story to get out about some of the humanitarian and military issues
> going on in the southern part of the country. For what it's worth ...

Which is not much.  If he could send such an e-mail, why isn't he writing
such a story for his employer?  If he has such a story and he is not writing
it, why not?  Sounds to me that the guy is a political activist, not a
reporter.  If he was a reporter, he would be reporting the story.  Of
course, he could just be making it up and that's why he's e-mailing college
professors instead of writing it for the Post.

The government has no control of the non-embedded reports.  The embedded
reports sign a contract on what not to report, but the government does not
censor their reports, though they can get kicked out if they violate the
contract so that probably does result in self-censorship.

More interesting was listening to an ITN reporter in Baghdad talk about how
much the Iraqi minders effected what he reported before today.

By the way:  NBC just interviewed representatives of the International Red
Cross about the humanitrian problems in Iraq.

-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine