Selil said:
"...The media and the issues with society are no less complex than civil military issues. The censorship rampant in the reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan with the associated cacophony of complaints is a warning of peril. Whereas democracy and capitalism have nothing to do with each other a free press is a corner stone to democracy.
True but the responsiblity for much of that does nor reside solely with the government or the armed forces. Your later post on the same topic is also good but as you say it is a quite complex issue and it is emphatically not all one-sided.

Many in the media have an attitude problem; many in the armed forces have an attitude problem -- result: Major friction. I don't disagree with what you say but my perception is that the armed forces are more willing to bend then is the media.

I'll admit to some bias, I got misquoted in Korea, the Dominican Republic and in Viet Nam, all of little importance but a misquote is a misquote. I also had two major conflicts with a newspaper and a TV guy in Viet Nam. My son had reporters about on occasion in both Afghanistan and Iraq -- but only occasionally; they come, stay a few days and leave. His perception is that the attitude problem I cited is pretty severe; as he says distrust by the media is one thing -- acute dislike is another. That kind of attitude and a tendency to be condescending to the troops leads to thing like this (LINK); note the signaling individual is not a senior military type...

Far more to it than attempts to censor and skew the news on the part of the Armed Forces. I agree with your concern for a constructive and vigilant free press -- we don't have that. I wish we did and I'm quite sure the reason that we do not is not all the fault of any government or anyone's armed forces...

Steve posted a link from the FT. Thanks. Reinforces the trend I've noted in the last few years exemplified by the climbing rate of female advanced degrees and the declining rate of makes with them -- and baccalaureate degrees as well. Does not bode well.

Schmedlap disagrees that restricting picture of returning flag draped coffins is censorship. I do also. Not to get a semantic argument going but whether it's censorship or not, it's an okay policy. YMMV. With a kid who's had three tours and will soon get another, I agree with the policy. I'll also note that if he got zapped, the local media would cover it as they have hundreds of others (you can also check You Tube). Any body wants to see flag draped coffins, there are plenty of them out there -- so to me it's not an issue of censorship, it's an issue of imposed good taste on a 'profession' (and I use the word loosely) that proves on a daily basis they have no taste. Nor very much competence.