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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Katie, Katie, Katie

CBS News is sending anchorette Katie Couric to Baghdad. This is a dog-and-pony show meant to help CBS’ wimpy ratings. As a longtime professional journalist, I am sickened by this type of “parachute journalism” in which a reporter pops into a war zone or other hotspot, stays in safe zones, then reports as if they are veteran war journalist Ernie Pile reincarnated.
If you want to know what’s going on, what type of progress is happening, what victory looks like and what death in a warzone is, you need to read and watch folks who live with the troops. Eat with them. And, when hell hits, fight with them.
Jeff Emanuel is embedded with our troops in Iraq as you read this.

Jeff wrote an insightful article on Katie’s courage. He says it all, really.

I suggest you go to PatDollard.com if you want to see some real reporting. Pat is my friend and he has more backbone than most journalists I have met. Also go to MattSanchez.com and Michael Yon’s website for real news during real time by real reporters.

And what about the magnificent pictures that frame a moment in time? Photographers give their lives to bring the truth that we can see with our own eyes.

We owe our lives to our troops. We owe the truth to reporters such as Matt, Michael, Jeff and Pat who tell it. Katie should stay home and read the news from a teleprompter.

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