Just a little reminder I thought y'all might like from a PBS Program discussing 'Ethics in America.'

Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace Agree
Reporters First, Americans Second

In a future war involving U.S. soldiers what would a TV reporter do if he learned the enemy troops with which he was traveling were about to launch a surprise attack on an American unit? That's just the question Harvard University professor Charles Ogletree Jr, as moderator of PBS' Ethics in America series, posed to ABC anchor Peter Jennings and 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. Both agreed getting ambush footage for the evening news would come before warning the U.S. troops.

For the March 7 installment on battlefield ethics Ogletree set up a theoretical war between the North Kosanese and the U.S.-supported South Kosanese. At first Jennings responded: "If I was with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans."

Wallace countered that other reporters, including himself, "would regard it simply as another story that they are there to cover." Jennings' position bewildered Wallace: "I'm a little bit of a loss to understand why, because you are an American, you would not have covered that story."

"Don't you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting fact?" Ogletree asked. Without hesitating Wallace responded: "No, you don't have higher duty... you're a reporter." This convinces Jennings, who concedes, "I think he's right too, I chickened out."

Ogletree turns to Brent Scrowcroft, now the National Security Adviser, who argues "you're Americans first, and you're journalists second." Wallace is mystified by the concept, wondering "what in the world is wrong with photographing this attack by North Kosanese on American soldiers?" Retired General William Westmoreland then points out that "it would be repugnant to the American listening public to see on film an ambush of an American platoon by our national enemy."

A few minutes later Ogletree notes the "venomous reaction" from George Connell, a Marine Corps Colonel. "I feel utter contempt. Two days later they're both walking off my hilltop, they're two hundred yards away and they get ambushed. And they're lying there wounded. And they're going to expect I'm going to send Marines up there to get them. They're just journalists, they're not Americans."

Wallace and Jennings agree, "it's a fair reaction." The discussion concludes as Connell says: "But I'll do it. And that's what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will die, going to get a couple of journalists."

From the Media Research Center at:  http://secure.mediaresearch.org/news/terrorism/terrorismarchive.html#Americans%20First

Eric The(Incredulous)Hun

Post from FanoftheBlackRifle -

I would be greatly surprised if Fox News reporters thought like that!

Even Geraldo Revera has reformed himself since coming to Fox!

Here is Media Research Center's discussion of Geraldo in Afghanistan:

On the October 29 Rivera Live, he mocked his colleagues: "You’ve all seen the melancholy reports over the last few days. ‘Our bombing’s not working, we’re slaughtering innocent civilians, our allies, the so-called Northern Alliance are all bluster, no belly, the Taliban’s winning, Ramadan is coming, winter is coming, woe is us!’"

He also criticized reporters for not realizing the Taliban were using, as a "tactical weapon," a Red Cross warehouse which the U.S. bombed and he castigated reporters for rationalizing the murder of 16 Christians in Pakistan as coming in response to the U.S. bombing.

Rivera declared on Monday night: "To me this latest warning feeds into a disturbing trend that I’ve seen in the press, at least since last Thursday or Friday. Regardless of the courage and the commitment of the American public and the American military helped along by officials who say things that are either incomplete or incorrect the media is, I’m afraid to say, losing its nerve. And that malignant insecurity is already questioning a war effort that is scarcely three-weeks old. You’ve all seen the melancholy reports over the last few days. ‘Our bombing’s not working, we’re slaughtering innocent civilians, our allies, the so-called Northern Alliance are all bluster, no belly, the Taliban’s winning, Ramadan is coming, winter is coming, woe is us!’ I think it’s time for the nay-sayers to heed the famous philosopher who said, ‘get over it!’ As Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said today, ‘This is a marathon, not a sprint.’ And the only war we’re losing so far is the battle not to lose our nerve."

Later, talking to Washington Post military columnist Bill Arkin, Rivera wondered: "How in the world can you judge a tactical approach to a war or even a strategic view of a war in three weeks? You know to point out civilian casualties without at the same time pointing out the fact that these guys are stuffing their stuff in mosques and schools and maybe we, we bombed that Red Cross warehouse because the Taliban was using that, what that warehouse contained as a, as a tactical weapon to either keep people on their side or to, to take their power and project their power even further. Maybe it was a target after all. I’m just saying how can we not give the benefit of the doubt after they kill thousands of Americans. This isn’t Vietnam. Vietnamese never took out the Golden Gate Bridge, they never hit a shopping mall, they never hit an office tower, they were living over there and maybe they want to be communists and you know whatever they wanted to be."

On the killings in Pakistan, Rivera complained: "But this is what I mean about the media play, Bill Arkin, NBC military analyst/Washington Post military columnist. When the 16 Christians, these 16 Christians were gunned down by three masked gunmen over the weekend the stories that I read seem to blame the United States for the fact that these scumbags took machine guns to men, women and children inside a church. And it was almost as if they were saying, ‘this is in retaliation for American bombing, therefore Americans are at least indirectly responsible.’ I just, you know why isn’t it that these, these slaughterers of innocents have done it again? These 16 people, just like the World Trade Center people?"

Indeed, recall from the October 30 CyberAlert how Dan Rather, on Monday’s CBS Evening News, characterized the terrorist attack in Pakistan: "In Pakistan, religious tensions are running higher after the U.S.-led terror war in Afghanistan touched off such events as a funeral today for Pakistani Christians gunned down during church services yesterday. Three masked gunmen fired on the Protestant congregation, meeting in a Catholic church, with automatic weapons, killing at least 16 people. No one has claimed direct responsibility."

Erc The(GeraldoIsCoolForTheTimeBeing)Hun[>]:)]