A “war correspondent” who is afraid to get hurt, and therefore resorts to “reporting” on the conflict from a Baghdad hotel room, is in the wrong business.

If “war correspondents” refuse to enter the fray, it’s only fair that they preface EVERY report from Iraq with: “We were unable to verify the information in this report, and instead relied on second-hand information from Iraqi stringers in the field.”

Optionally, but equally accurate, they might add: “Our coverage will focus almost exclusively on explosions detonated by terrorists, thus enabling their limited offensive capabilities to have the most propaganda impact, and ensuring their continued occurrence.”

I have read about a military opertion called Divids (sp?) that is a system of satellite uplinks from major bases the media could use.

The media could at least station reporters at the major bases in Iraq use the military satellites and avoid the dangers of sending reporters out on patrols with the military, but still increase news content.

So when something goes down in Ramadi, the local stringers could cover one aspect and the reporter at the base in Ramadi could file a report as well interviewing the commanders and soldiers on the scene.

Ask yourself how much domestic newsgathering in the U.S. is done electronically, without the need for a reporter to be on site (we can argue such an approach has other problems, but that’s another topic for discussion).

I believe that, were they really inclined to do so, reporters working from offices in the U.S. could find ways of making contact with military and civilians throughout Iraq. Ironically, from the safety of home, they’d presumably be even more free to present both sides of the story.

But “inclined to do so” is the key phrase here. The combination of increasingly ideological news-as-propaganda that’s coming not just from reporters but from editors and executives in news organizations on one end, and the trivialization and news-as-entertainment profit drive on the other have hopelessly distorted the goals and frankly all but destroyed the MSM credibility. I no longer trust, even factually, what I read in newspapers or have read to me through a teleprompter after years of selective omissions, plagiarism and deliberate misrepresentations.

It’s cheap to have a bunch of talking heads shouting at each other, but I don’t think very many people like watching that.

If they actually spent time and $ reporting, and weren’t biased, I might go back.