[GreenKeys] OF SUBJECT --- UPI NEWS INTERESTING

[Don Robert House]

Sorry about the lack of paragraphs.  This is how I received it:

COMMENTARY: HOW THE MEDIA CHANGED

Martin Walker UPI Chief International Correspondent
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BASRA, Iraq, April 8 (UPI) --   Something fundamental has happened to the
British and U.S. media during this war. Those who have spent time on the
front lines with the coalition troops, whether embedded with individual
units or traveling independently through liberated Iraq, have learned to
love the military. Time after time, they saved our necks. They put our
soft-skinned vehicles behind their armor when the shells came in. They told
us when to duck and when it was safe to move. They shared their food and
water with us, and were embarrassingly grateful when we let them use our
satellite phones to call home. We were embarrassed that it was all we could
for them. We saw how hard they tried to avoid civilian casualties, and the
risks they took by their self-restraint. We began to understand their quiet
pride in their skills, and the plain decency of the men and women who follow
the profession of arms. When we got lost, U.S. Marines went out of their way
to put us right, and British officers sketched "safe" areas on a map. They
are kind to one another, and considerate to civilians like us. "Thank God
for the British army," said a grinning UPI photographer Chris Corder (an
American) as we tucked in behind the comforting bulk of a Warrior armored
infantry vehicle of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards one night outside Basra,
and were offered a cup of tea. Above all, they are no longer "the military."
They have become individuals that we have got to know, like little Robert,
who to his regret is too short to stand guard outside Buckingham Palace, and
has to remain behind doing stores duty. There is Paul from Northern Ireland
who is genuinely upset at the poverty of the Iraqi people he sees and fills
his pockets with biscuits and candy to give to the children. There is Sarge,
who grumbles that this war is all about oil and is far from sure he likes
it. There is Chris, a volunteer from Zimbabwe, whose dream is to play his
bagpipes for the Queen, and who hesitantly asks if we can find out if
Manchester Union won its match. With the British troops and the U.S. 3rd
Division, with the 101st Airborne and the Marines, with the gunners and the
medics and the Air Force and aboard ships, there are hundreds of journalists
learning the same lessons, getting to know the same kinds of troops, and
realizing that we in the media had better rethink the way we do our work.
One of the consequences of the way the British and Americans have dropped
conscription and now use professional armies is that the media and the
broader population have become disconnected from their troops. The military
have become a private club, and one that has learned to distrust most of the
media, who know little of the people who fight in their country's name. The
legacy of wars in dubious causes like Vietnam or some of the British
colonial wars has widened the gulf of mutual ignorance and mistrust. This
still happens. At one of the daily briefings at Coalition Command
headquarters in Qatar (about 300 miles behind the lines), a large and
skeptical media corps became restive at what they saw as military
stonewalling or weasel words about responsibility for civilian casualties in
the Baghdad bombing. Journalists on the front lines took a very different
view of the need for operational security. We did not even complain when we
were ordered to turn off our satellite phones because the Iraqi guns seemed
to be able to zero on their transmissions, or when we were asked not to
report something. "Screw the nut on it, mate," a British SAS Special Forces
trooper told me when I came across him questioning one of his Iraqi agents
inside Basra. "No photos, and not a word until Basra falls -- all right?" Of
course it was alright. Forget journalistic objectivity. There were armed men
across the road trying to kill me, and my protection depended on these
British troops, many of whom I knew by their first names. There was no
question which side I was on. In the same way, those of us in the field knew
that those gloomy armchair pundit accounts from London and Washington of
setbacks and "pauses" were missing the point. We learned to understand the
painstaking way the British were gathering intelligence in Basra and
steadily separating the Saddam loyalists from the bulk of the population --
so the place finally fell like a house of cards. Air Marshal Brian Burridge,
the British commander, suggests that the hundreds of journalists who have
learned a new understanding of the military could change the way the media
covers war. It is about time.