In disagree with the article somewhat for a couple of reasons:

Taken as a whole, Broadcast/print/"new"/local/national/international media, Gentile's satement is accurate, and media types, especially national will cite this. Whne you go down the "rat-hole", you discover hwo the data points are skewed, and this is where I first take issue with Gentile's statement:

Local media provides the most in-depth and honest coverage of what actually happens on the ground. Local media is often there because of a local angle (NG/USAR unit operating or major military base in local area). Bottomline they are covering the actions because of localn interest do to the servicemembers being part of the local community. The reporting tends to generally serve as an informative piece for the locals. Local boradcast tries to do the saem, but they usually do not have the resources (time) to go as in depth.

National Media seeks to shape opinion more than just inform. The broadcast media is further constrained by competing priorities hwich further cuts down on depth. fFurthermore, the national media is Bagdhad centric, unless on specific tasker because they have to be ready to respond to breaking news from where ever in Iraq (look at the background shots when the correspondants are on, they are almost all the same) . This leads to shortcuts that go along with 120mm was saying. National print is better, because they have more than 2 minutes of airtime, but they are also trying to shape opinion, not inform, but you need a compelling story for column space, and somethings work better than others, or they serve an agenda. Broadcast media makes this clear and you can say they very different opinions between TV and radio participation, but that should be suprising to nobody around here.

New media provides some compelling and accurate reports from all over (mIchale Yon, for example). However, there are issues with verification and authenticity at times, but hey its a new technology, and it will take some time to mature (This has incredible potential).

My second issue with Gentile, is the "location, location, location" line from real estate. In Bagdhad you have a wide variety of national media avilable with all kinds of different opinions and perspectives on the US campaign/policy in Iraq. f you are not in Bagdhad, you do not see this kind of coverage. So I would contend that while Gentile made an accurate statement for what he saw in Bagdhad, I disagree with it based on what I saw in other parts of Iraq where I was.

Finally, 120mm brought up some very prescient points about the media. As much as military members have generalizations made about us based on some not so stellar acts by fellow servicemembers, I do not think that media understands that their image is not so hot based on points that 120mm pointed out, of which the failure to condem the Dan Rather crew on such an egregious foul as Bush NG story (opinions aside about Bush) is a great example. They ran a story presenting fraudulent documents as factual evidence to meet an agenda, and that is wrong regardless of who is/was President. This leaves some credibility issues the media has to sort out at the national levels.

A couple of thoughts I have on this. IF all of the reporters and media pundits are such experts on how to conduct war and when to conduct it, then shouldn't they be open to my opinions and thoughts on how to craft a newstory/broadcast. Is the reciprocity of expertise not a two way street?

Aslo the deep thought (which is pretty shallow): If the first three "estates" of scoitey are considered divine and formed of God's will, and the media describes itself as the "Fourth Estate" the who created the Fourth Estate? (I think I hear the church lady yelling an answer)