On The Media

In his interview, Mike Drummond referred to McClatchy's military sources as "second-tier sources". Those second-tier sources provided top-notch information to the née Knight-Ridder team. While other media groups' Pentagon sources were celebrity-tier, their information was low-grade, borderline propaganda.

-- SCAM

i was taken aback by the tone of Brooke's questioning. it was almost as if she thought that the bush administration's heretofore unreliable press comments should be take more seriously when the "A" word is used. they shouldn't. and.... the longer a reporter is in Iraq, the more tied he or she is to the military, since, outside of the green zone, they are unable to move freely. so a reporter just arrived may turn out to be the best resource for truth. certainly, the use of "Al Qaeda" in place of insurgents seems curious.... doesn't it?

Mike Drummond should be commended for his efforts to perform true journalism under less-than-perfect conditions. And Brooke's pointing out of McClatchy's pre-war record of seeing past the Administration's drumbeat is a noteworthy bit of information.

However, also among the handful of journalists who held the Administration's feet to the fire was the Associated Press's special correspondent Charles Hanley. He, along with McLatchy-ites Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay, was featured in the recent episode of "Bill Moyers Journal" entitled "Buying The War."

The point of this particular comment is that AP's Hanley -- just returned on Friday from his sixth trip to Iraq -- filed a story from Baghdad headlined "In Iraq, U.S. Spotlights al-Qaida" on June 8. And many of the points featured in Drummond's OTM piece were contained in Hanley's earlier article.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am proud to say that Charles Hanley is my brother (and has no prior knowledge of this posting). And I am grateful for his safe return from Iraq and for his fine reporting from the war zone.

The AP's story can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/2sj7a8