Damned by praise, praised by damnation

Unintended Compliments and Insults

Steve Valley’s Inside the Fortress should be required reading by anyone who wants to understand the often tense and contentious relationship between the military and the media.

It’s an easy read, a straightforward, sometimes breezy account of Valley’s time in Iraq, including his many complaints about, and occasional praise of, the “MSM” (Mainstream Media).

But in doling out laurels to his favored press corps representatives, Valley doesn’t do them any favors, and in fact he reinforces the corrosive perception that reporters who cover the military are too cozy with the people they cover.

Here’s the short version: Valley had a lot of respect for John Burns, the wild-haired veteran correspondent for The New York Times. “John was the writer we picked for every important event we needed to be covered accurately and without bias,” Valley writes in the chapter about the Fourth Estate.

Here’s the problem: I read Burns reporting in the Times, and saw him often as a guest on CNN. And I agree with Valley. His reporting was of the highest caliber.  But whenever military officials were tempted to tell my bosses what I great job I was doing, and how superior my reporting was compared to others who seem to have an agenda, or were just careless with the facts, I would thank them, and advise them to resist the urge.

“The best thing you can do for me is to complain about me,” I would explain jokingly. The last thing senior editors want to hear is that their reporters are loved by the people they’re covering. The biggest occupational hazard faced by Pentagon correspondents is the perception that they have become overly impressed with the military or too easily persuaded by their arguments.

It can lead to instant journalistic death. So while we reporters do want to enjoy the respect of the military, it is even more important to maintain the respect of our bosses or we won’t be in any position to earn respect from anyone.
Now I would think the Pulitzer prize-winner John Burns has such a stellar reputation over a such long career, he’s in no danger of being perceived as “going native.”

And it’s only natural for Public Affairs officers to appreciate good reporting. It does make their job easier. And Valley singles out a few of the very best, including NBC’s Richard Engle, and CNN’s Jane Arraf. Then he drops a bombshell, offering that his “nice” list includes “any Fox News Channel reporter.”

2004 Marine Shooting

Ouch. That’s the kind of blanket endorsement that smacks of collusion. Consider Valley’s praise of Fox’s Steve Harrigan, (who was a crackerjack producer for CNN in Moscow when I first met him in 1994). As Valley recounts it, he was discussing with Harrigan an incident in which an embedded reporter, Kevin Sites at the time with NBC, shot video of a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded insurgent in a mosque who, it turned out, was unarmed. Shooting the wounded is a clear violation of the law of armed conflict, but following an investigation the Marines decided the unnamed Marine corporal might have reasonably thought the man was a threat because he could not see what was in his hands.  No charges were filed.  Fair enough.

But here’s the disturbing part. According to Valley, Harrigan of Fox told him, “If I had taken that video, I would have just given it to the Marines because there was no need to put something like that on the news.” Valley said the statement exemplified the difference between Fox News and other news outlets.

As I said, I know Steve Harrigan. He did a great job helping me when I was lost in Kiev, Ukraine. But that statement, that you would essentially ignore up what might be a war crime, just reinforces the worst perception of journalists in the war zone, as partisans, not impartial reporters.

By the same token Valley did CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and John Vause a big favor. He complained that Christiane was guilty of “obnoxious behavior” and “wanting to be treated better than anyone else. The truth is, that’s usually seen by media bosses as “aggressively fighting for competitive advantage.” Same for John Vause who annoyed Valley by leaving a CNN camera on during an attack, when the military ordered everyone to pull back. A shoouting match ensued. Valley thinks he won this dustup by keeping his cool. But I guarantee you, CNN would have nothing but praise for a reporter who went toe-to-toe with a PAO to get an advantage on a story.

Memo to unscrupulous PAOs: If you really want to harm a reporter’s career, you have to be diabolical. Call the reporter’s boss and praise the journalist for reporting the story exactly the way you thought it should be reported. Thank them for using all your talking points, and not mentioning anything that could be misconstrued as a war crime. Of course, you’d have to lie, in most cases. But if you’re okay with that…

See Steve’s full respoonse and my additional comments at Fortress Mentality

Tags: Inside the Fortress, Iraq, Kevin Sites, Media, Steve Harrigan, Steve Valley