Are Reporters Citizens?

The Armed Liberal, posting at Winds of Change, has a very interesting post up today. I hope you’ll read the whole thing, as it is a great exploration of the intersection of war and reporting.

What got the Armed Liberal thinking about this, it seems, is The Los Angeles Times' story about Michael Yon, and its dismissive and typically liberal tone. The Times, and other lamestream media, seem to have a problem with Michael Yon’s openly pro-America, pro-military style. There’s also been a lot about an incident that Michael Yon reported on wherein he became part of the story, by picking up a gun to defend a wounded American soldier in imminent danger, and himself. Most reporters thought this action was inappropriate; Michael Yon (and the Army) did not. In other words, Michael Yon is an American citizen first, and a reporter second.

It seems that in the lamestream media, reporters are supposed to be reporters first, and American citizens second (and perhaps the latter is optional, even). The Armed Liberal repeats a story involving Mike Wallace (of 60 Minutes fame) that illustrates this very well:

Then Ogletree turned to the two most famous members of the evening’s panel, better known than William Westmoreland himself. These were two star TV journalists: Peter Jennings of World News Tonight and ABC, and Mike Wallace of 6o Minutes and CBS. Ogletree brought them into the same hypothetical war. He asked Jennings to imagine that he worked for a network that had been in contact with the enemy North Kosanese government. After much pleading, the North Kosanese had agreed to let Jennings and his news crew into their country, to film behind the lines and even travel with military units. Would Jennings be willing to go? Of course, Jennings replied. Any reporter would-and in real wars reporters from his network often had. But while Jennings and his crew are traveling with a North Kosanese unit, to visit the site of an alleged atrocity by American and South Kosanese troops, they unexpectedly cross the trail of a small group of American and South Kosanese soldiers. With Jennings in their midst, the northern soldiers set up a perfect ambush, which will let them gun down the Americans and Southerners, every one. What does Jennings do? Ogletree asks. Would he tell his cameramen to “Roll tape!” as the North Kosanese opened fire? What would go through his mind as he watched the North Kosanese prepare to ambush the Americans? Jennings sat silent for about fifteen seconds after Ogletree asked this question. “Well, I guess I wouldn’t,” he finally said. “I am going to tell you now what I am feeling, rather than the hypothesis I drew for myself. If I were with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think that I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans.” Even if it means losing the story? Ogletree asked.

Even though it would almost certainly mean losing my life, Jennings replied. “But I do not think that I could bring myself to participate in that act. That’s purely personal, and other reporters might have a different reaction.” Immediately Mike Wallace spoke up. “I think some other reporters would have a different reaction,” he said, obviously referring to himself. “They would regard it simply as a story they were there to cover.” “I am astonished, really,” at Jennings’s answer, Wallace said moment later. He turned toward Jennings and began to lecture him: “You’re a reporter. Granted you’re an American"-at least for purposes of the fictional example; Jennings has actually retained Canadian citizenship. “I’m a little bit at a loss to understand why, because you’re an American, you would not have covered that story.” Ogletree pushed Wallace. Didn’t Jennings have some higher duty, either patriotic or human, to do something other than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot? “No,” Wallace said flatly and immediately. “You don’t have a higher duty. No. No. You’re a reporter!” Jennings backtracked fast. Wallace was right, he said. “I chickened out.” Jennings said that he had gotten so wrapped up in the hypothetical questions that he had lost sight of his journalistic duty to remain detached. As Jennings said he agreed with Wallace, everyone else in the room seemed to regard the two of them with horror. Retired Air Force general Brent Scowcroft, who had been Gerald Ford’s national security advisor and would soon serve in the same job for George Bush, said it was simply wrong to stand and watch as your side was slaughtered. “What’s it worth?” he asked Wallace bitterly. “It’s worth thirty seconds on the evening news, as opposed to saving a platoon.” Ogletree turned to Wallace. What about that? Shouldn’t the reporter have said something? Wallace gave his most disarming grin, shrugged his shoulders and spread his palms wide in a “Don’t ask me!” gesture, and said, “I don’t know.” He was mugging to the crowd in such a way that he got a big laugh-the first such moment of the discussion. Wallace paused to enjoy the crowd’s reaction. Jennings, however, was all business, and was still concerned about the first answer he had given. “I wish I had made another decision,” Jennings said, as if asking permission to live the last five minutes over again. “I would like to have made his decision"-that is, Wallace’s decision to keep on filming. A few minutes later Ogletree turned to George M. Connell, a Marine colonel in full uniform, jaw muscles flexing in anger, with stress on each word, Connell looked at the TV stars and said, “I feel utter . . . contempt. " Two days after this hypothetical episode, Connell Jennings or Wallace might be back with the American forces — and could be wounded by stray fire, as combat journalists often had been before. The instant that happened he said, they wouldn’t be “just journalists” any more. Then they would drag them back, rather than leaving them to bleed to death on the battlefield. “We’ll do it!” Connell said. “And that is what makes me so contemptuous of them. Marines will die going to get … a couple of journalists.” The last few words dripped with disgust.

The interview above occurred in 1987, and the Armed Liberal counts this as the turning point whereafter reporters were reporters first, citizens second.

The attitude that Mike Wallace espouses I find almost incomprehensible. In fact, the only framework I can use to understand it is one where the reporter like Mike Wallace actually sees themselves as an adversary to America. How else could you be willing to allow, through your own inaction, other Americans to walk into an ambush and be slaughtered? The current liberal mindset is that reporters should be neutral third parties to what they’re reporting (sure, our reporters are neutral!). But I can’t see how that’s possible when the reporter is also an American citizen, reporting on a conflict in which America is one of the parties. I’m reminded of the fact that in general surgeons don’t operate on their own relatives, because they know that remaining objective in those circumstances is nearly impossible. Ditto with the reporters, I think. And who says they should be neutral, anyway? What’s wrong with reporters for the American press being pro-American? Who made that rule?

Personally, I wish we had a lot more Michael Yon-style reporting, and a lot less of the liberal blather that passes for reporting in the lamestream media. I have read every word that Michael Yon has published, and I’m hungry for more of the same. From him I get direct, blunt reporting of what it’s actually like on the ground in Iraq. He actually goes out with the troops — instead of hiding out in the Green Zone, like most reporters in Iraq. I’ve never caught him spinning a story in a pro-American way. He reports the facts as he sees them, and then tells you how he feels about those facts. I don’t mind hearing his feelings, so long as I’ve first heard the facts. The lamestream media, on the other hand, selectively reports the things they think I should hear, often twisting the facts in the first place — and then offers up their commentary as if it were fact as well. They think we’re all sheep who need to be herded in some direction; Michael Yon thinks we’re adults who can handle the straight scoop.

And if Michael Yon (who, BTW, has a Special Forces background) is man enough to pick up a rifle and engage America’s enemy while he’s reporting, I have no quarrel with that. In fact, quite the opposite: I admire his courage, and I admire the straightforward way that he reported the incident and his own thinking about it…