Attitudes twards the media

[marct]

Hi JC,

When a reporter goes further than one-layer, they typically do describe the events better and are more accurate. They also write about the personal struggles that the troops face, and from (what I have seen) are more responsible about printing what a servicemember says when they know it may be a ill-thought out reply to a question, or something that could discredit the unit.

I wonder if that comes abut as a result of being in the field longer and getting a better "feel" for what's happening.

At the end of the day, you have to always be on your toes with what you say to an embed, and it get's tiring to the point that you'd almost rather not have them around. I could talk to my Fox camera guy as though he was a college buddy, but the actual reporter had to be handled differently. Ever have the experience where you are having a discussion with someone, and you can see the wheels turning in their head, trying to find a way to fit what you say into their agenda? It can be unsettling.

Oh, yeah, I've been there! Quite tiring over the long run, and it really meant that I had to keep a bunch of attention that should have been elsewhere on them <sigh>. I began to feel like a juggler wih too many balls in the air...

Independent embeds who bankroll their visits seem to be a slightly different story, but I've never run across one of them in person.

I wonder how many of them there are....

On a different note, I didn't checkout CBC yesterday. When I did, I came across the story of the 6 Canadians just killed in an IED attack in Afghanistan. One thing that struck me about the coverage was that it was so "personalized" - 5 of the 6 named (the 6th soldiers family didn't want his name released at this time) and with photos and micro-bio's, reactions from politicians and Hillier, etc.

Marc