Access. That’s what it’s all about. Better to receive limited and sanitized information than to bite the hand that feeds you, because doing so might mean that you would actually have to go out and locate other sources. But no problem, reporters travelling to Guantanmo Bay are usually led around by the hand and force fed.
NYT Link
Reporters who visit Guantánamo are usually reluctant to criticize the military publicly because it controls their access to the base. Once there, reporters are paired with “minders,” who organize and restrict their movements and escort them around the grounds.
Now, in the wake of suicides by three Guantanamo Bay inmates, reporters have been asked to leave the Naval base.
Last Wednesday, after spending four days reporting from the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, three newspaper reporters and a photographer were ordered off the island by the Pentagon.
Oh my, ordered off the island, and it wasn’t even put to a tribal vote! But apparently, one of the reporters may have heard too much.
The Charlotte Observer said its reporter, who was originally assigned to write a profile on a military commander at the base, may have obtained too many details about the military’s response to the suicides, leading the Pentagon to impose new restrictions on reporters.
Can there really be too many details? Well, if there’s nothing to hide it shouldn’t be a problem, right? But, it’s okay, because the Pentagon just wanted all reporters to be treated equally.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, Cynthia Smith, said it was unfair for those three reporters to be allowed at Guantánamo when others had been denied access. “We want to be fair and impartial,” Ms. Smith said. “We couldn’t just give them an exclusive.”
Right. But maybe this had something to do with it.
Rick Thames, the editor of The Charlotte Observer, said the Pentagon was unhappy with articles Mr. Gordon had filed, including an account of a morning staff meeting on June 12 led by Colonel Bumgarner.
And those damned Gitmo detainees, you just can’t trust them.
Mr. Gordon had quoted Colonel Bumgarner as telling the staff, “The trust level is gone,” referring to the detainees. “They have shown time and time again that we can’t trust them any farther than we can throw them.” Mr. Thames of The Observer said, “We can’t be certain, but we believe the Pentagon was uneasy with close-up access to the operations of the prison at a time of crisis,” adding, “Clearly, they were at odds over this.”
And if you can’t trust a Gitmo detainee the distance of a throw, who can you trust? But if they are throwing detainees, maybe that’s the crux of the problem. But maybe I’m wrong and this is really the crux.
WASHINGTON, June 14, 2006 – Detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are dangerous men, and the best place to deal with them is in military courts, President Bush said here today. […]“I’d like to close Guantanamo,” he said. “But I also recognize that … we’re holding some people that are darn dangerous and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts.”
Darn dangerous those detainees may be, but there is apparently no danger in the dying (or dead) independent media. But wait, the foreign media are apparently not subject to the level playing field.
Ms. Smith, the Pentagon spokeswoman, said that there had been no change in Pentagon policy regarding the media and that reporters from three overseas news organizations — Deutsche Welle, Le Parisien and The Times of London — are to visit this week.
But really, who reads those foreign papers anyway?
Great diary!
Fair and impartial to all reporters by not allowing the FREE PRESS in. HA!!! It’s the Bushtapo.
Let’s practice our goosestepping.
Great diary Boran2!
Bushtapo, I’m gonna use that. With your permission, of course. 😉
IMO, this one is your best!
Thank you!
A small highjack, but not entirely off the subject.
I was trapped in an awful hotel room this past weekend, and saw Pat Schroeder, former Congressional member from Colorado, speaking about the women’s movement. She noted how it had been derailed from its original goals. How? By the seductive desire on the part of some people to have face-time and face to face access with the powerful. She described the salons of Washington as full of these types (my description, not hers). The desiring face-access types make-nice and do not arouse any hostility, but join with the powerful to point to the evil ways of the rabble.
Yet those types depended on the rabble-rousers outside, otherwise, the powerful would have no need to give the few “acceptable” women any face time at all.
Sound familiar? The analogy isn’t perfect, but it fits our main-stream media in large part. It seems to be a close description of what our media has become. If the netroots community was not here, pressing them, would the big media be asking questions at all?? The Fox could do it all, and the rest could simply occupy time by hypnotizing the rest.
Of course, they aren’t doing that yet , are they?
(My apologies, Boran!)
I wonder if it’s inevitable that all outsiders eventually become part of the mainstream. But you’re right, those with the edge give the others, the “more normal” ones, cover.
I don’t think so. I think their are real limits to what the mainstream will accept, and (fortunately), principles that some people cannot or will not compromise. Perhaps in other times, other places they may be mainstream – like the people who were burned at the stake to allow the common people to read the bible rather than keeping it solely to the priesthood. That reading became common place, but not in the time of the martyrs.
I think we see that today, also. For example, I believe the Greens have virtually no chance of winning any major election at the federal level in my lifetime. So they are permanently marginalized, in the permanency that is their lives. But through their work, a different day may come that allows true consideration of a real stewardship and conservation of our natural resources. Part of our struggle now is to decide whether to keep pushing this green agenda now – without seen much payoff, or being a part of the larger system, which has much more likely hood of being changed. So, we are having our own struggle with access.
Great diary boran2. Especially inspired commentary.
While reading it I am hearing in the background of my mind the sound of bloviating politicians standing at the people’s microphone praising and thanking each other.
The bush/rove show is falling in the ratings. Meanwhile look at what happens to the people who fight back against the bloviating:
Anderson Cooper gets his own late-night show as a network star. NOLA mayor Ray Nagin gets re-elected. The Dixie Chicks sell millions of new albums. I am inspired by them and by everyone I read here.