NY Post Discovers Threats of Violence Cause Washington Post to Compromise Integrity

In HOW MEDIA GET IRAQ WRONG By ERIC M. JOHNSON

The last sentence of this NY Post critique of the comPost's Iraq coverage summarizes what Post watchers have known about the Post for years.....they stink.

"Since I saw Rajiv Chandrasekaran's (Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post) integrity up close, I haven't believed a word he writes, or any story coming out of the bureau he runs. You shouldn't, either."

In the article, the comPost's Bennet is quoted to concede that

"the threat of violence has distanced us from Iraqis." Further, "we have relied on Iraqi stringers filing by telephone to our correspondents in Baghdad, and on embedding with the military. The stringers are not professional journalists, and their reports are heavy on the simplest direct observation."

Translation: We are reprinting things from people we barely know, from a safe location dozens of miles away from the fighting.

Bennett flatly concedes that they have a "dim picture" of what is happening in Iraq (not that you would know it from the actual news articles he approves for publication). "The people of Iraq . . . are leading their country, and ours, down an uncertain path. This is a story waiting to be told."

We know the comPost has only a dim picture of Israel....but do you think threats of violence are the cause?

Those of us who follow their coverage of Israel would be happy with the simplest direct observation by Iraqi stringers ...they couldn't be worse than the misinformed rants of Moore and Anderson.