Is this how Marines really see the media? Ya think?

The New York Times excerpts from a memo of "talking points" that Marine officers prepared after a Time Magazine reporter, Tim McGirk, inquired about the killing of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children in Haditha in 2005. The Iraqis were allegedly killed by Marines after a roadside bomb killed an infantryman and wounded two others. At the time they wrote the memo, as the Times writes, the "Marine officers assumed the Iraqi deaths occurred during combat and were justified, if regrettable."

Some excerpts from the memo as it does seem to reveal how the Marines see the American media in Iraq.

McGirk: How many marines were killed and wounded in the I.E.D. attack that morning?

Memo: If it bleeds, it leads. This question is McGirk’s attempt to get good bloody gouge on the situation. He will most likely use the information he gains from this answer as an attention gainer.

•

McGirk: Were there any officers?

Memo: By asking if there was an officer on scene the reporter may be trying to identify a point of blame for lack of judgment. If there was an officer involved, then he may be able to have his My Lai massacre pinned on that officer’s shoulders. ...

In the reporter’s eyes, military officers may represent the U.S. government and enlisted marines may represent the American People. Given the current political climate in the U.S. at this time concerning the Iraq war and the current administration’s conduct of the war, the reporter would most likely seek to discredit the U.S. government (one of our officers) and expose victimization of the American people by the hand of the government (the enlisted marines under the haphazard command of our “rogue officer.”) Unfortunately for McGirk, this is not the case.

One common tactic used by reporters is to spin a story in such a way that it is easily recognized and remembered by the general population through its association with an event that the general population is familiar with or can relate to. For example, McGirk’s story will sell if it can be spun as “Iraq’s My Lai massacre.” Since there was not an officer involved, this attempt will not go very far.

We must be on guard, though, of the reporter’s attempt to spin the story to sound like incidents from well-known war movies, like “Platoon.”

In “Platoon,” Sergeant Barnes, the movie’s antihero, is depicted as a no-nonsense, war-haggard platoon sergeant who knows how to get things done in the bloody jungles of Vietnam — and it ain’t always pretty. During one scene, Sergeant Barnes is shown on the verge of committing war crimes in front of his platoon by threatening to kill women and children as a means of interrogation. This is a classic “runaway sergeant” storyline wherein the audience is supposed to be sickened by the sergeant’s brutality and equally sickened by the traumatic effects war has on soldiers. This schema is especially fruitful for Mr. McGirk because if he tries to adapt our situation to this model it simultaneously exposes a “war crime cover-up” and shows the deteriorative (albeit exaggerated) effects of war on U.S. marines (the best of the best), which could be expanded by the general press as a testament for why the U.S. should pull out of Iraq.

[Colonel Chessani later shortened this answer to “No.”]

Eventually the Marine Corps would charge three enlisted men with murder and four officers with dereliction of duty pursuant to the killings. It was in the course of this trial, still ongoing, that this memo surfaced. There's more in the Times article so check it out.

On the media's role in the war on terror

Laurie Byrd at The Examiner reports on the media front of the war on terror:

Whether they realize it, members of the mainstream media are participants in the war on terrorism, and nowhere is that more evident than in Iraq.

As she goes on to report:

[Blogger Bill] Roggio recently told the Christian Science Monitor that most mainstream media reporters “display a lack of knowledge of counterinsurgency and the role the media plays in an insurgency’s information campaign.” He says al Qaeda and insurgent groups frequently choose their targets to get specific media coverage they desire.

She cites another example, this one offered by journalist Michael Yon:

“As the British increase their forces in Afghanistan, they are drawing down in Iraq. Although the drawdown in Iraq is based on pragmatism, the enemy apparently is attempting to create the perception of a military rout. So while the British reduce their forces in southern Iraq, they are coming under heavier fire and the enemy makes claims of driving ‘the occupiers’ out.”

Then there is the media's lack of interest in good news, according to Gerd Schroeder, a major in the U.S. Army who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He came to that conclusion, reports Byrd, after studying The Iraq Index, a report prepared by the Brookings Institute that keeps track of various statistics in Iraq, and comparing it with news reports on the numbers of trained Iraqi Security Forces.

As Bryd reports:

Schroeder concluded that when ISF figures became a good news story of progress, they received less media attention. He says there is “significant, unreported good news” in Iraq. He acknowledges there is plenty of bad news there, but that “the media has been doing a good job of reporting on those negative aspects.”

While I'm sure the mainstream media believes its role is to speak truth to and about power - and I agree that that's its proper role - it ought to remember that there are competing sources of power, especially in a war zone.

Iraqi journalists are sacrificing their lives to bring us news coverage

Iraqslogger calls attention to the International News Safety Institute (INSI) report that demonstrates just how brave Iraqi journalists have been in covering the "bloodiest war for media in modern times."

From the INSI press release:

The death toll of journalists and other professionals in the newsgathering team, such as translators, guides and drivers, has risen dramatically since the war began on 20 March 2003.

It mushroomed in 2006-7 -- and Iraqis increasingly have borne the brunt as it has become ever more difficult for foreign correspondents to travel independently outside their protected compounds.

Twenty-three journalists and other news media staff died in 2003, 42 in 2004, 36 in 2005, 70 in 2006 and 16 this year so far. Seventy-five have fallen in the past year since the third anniversary of the start of the war.

Most of the casualties in 2003 were international, when the war was in its conventional invasion phase. But as the conflict turned into a full-blown insurgency and increasingly towards civil war the Iraqi casualties began to mount -- 36 in 2004, 35 in 2005, 68 in 2006 and all 16 this year.

With foreigners largely confined to their bases, Iraqis have become the eyes and ears of the world on the biggest news story of the day...

"The bravery of the Iraqi journalists is astonishing," commented INSI Director Rodney Pinder. "They are not only being killed in horrifying numbers because of their dedication to their craft, but they are being beaten and exiled and their families threatened. Yet without them the rest of us would be blind.

"Their's is one of the truly outstanding stories of modern journalism."

Indeed.