COIN & The Media (catch all)

[Ken White]

IMHO, the adversarial relationship is a creation of the media. If they wanted to end it, they would have to begin by rejecting the current concept of journalistic "ethics" and return to the older ideal of dispassionately presenting the facts.

I'll add that I hear and agree with everything Bayonet Brant said -- but...

I agree that Journalism would strongly benefit from being joined by persons with some military experience -- two points occur to me. There won't be enough former military types attracted to journalism to swing the net media anti-military / great unwashed attitude and, worse, those who do opt for such a career will generally have only limited military experience and possibly some biases of their own...

I've spent my entire 75+ years around one service or another, 45 of them in the Marines or Army or working as an Army Civilian employee, am very interested in many aspects of the profession, read a lot -- and I still learn new things every day. I'm not at all sure the average SPC/SGT or 1LT/CPT will bring that much to the profession. It will help, surely but I doubt that it'll produce the major change in knowledge --and more importantly, attitude, that is required for better cooperation and reportage.

The counterpoint of sending military people as interns or assistants to local media outlets may have some benefits -- provided one could get Congress and the media to accede to it. John T. Fishel on another thread suggested that the US Government could solve the unity of command problem in a given nation or theater by the President simply pointing his finger and saying "You are in charge." That is unlikely to happen because Congress would object (Republicans if a Democratic President were to do it or vice versa; ostensibly over Departmental roles and missions, practically over tainting either 'side' with the other). Same thing applies to embedding the Press in the military or the reverse. The adversely affected (in their view) side will get their allies in Congress to object. Consider the MV-22 in service despite the objections of a couple of SecDefs, strong lobbying by other industry entities and the Army and only lukewarm support by the Navy...

But I digress -- back to the Military and the Media. The cliche oil and water are appropriate. I hear and appreciate what Bayonet says -- I strongly doubt it will make much difference; the cultures -- as Spud pointed out LINK are too different...