"Remote Reporting" Blamed For Much Bad Iraq News

We've heard it for a couple years, minimum: Reporters are reporting the War in Iraq from the Green Zone, or worse, from Washington DC, and are therefore misreporting the war. Here's some recent proof from Michael Fumento:

In a Nov. 29 blog, "Will the real Ramadi please stand up" I observed that three articles on conditions in Ramadi and al Anbar Province had appeared within a week of each other giving entirely different points of view. Mine and one in the Times of London said we're winning the war in Ramadi; a Washington Post A1 story co-authored by "Fiasco" author Thomas Ricks claimed exactly the opposite. The difference, I said, could be explained simply. I and the Times writer reported from Ramadi. Ricks and his co-author have not only never been to Ramadi, they wrote their piece from Washington. Well now the WashPost has printed another article on the city, this time an upbeat one. What gives? You guessed it.The second one was reported from Ramadi. Case closed, thank you very much. Unfortunately, it's little solace knowing how few journalists ever leave their safe little hovels in Baghdad hotels or Washington, D.C.

I was a reporter for only a year or so, but I don't recall ever once in that time hearing an editor tell me, "Laer, stay here and get the story." I was expected to go out, even if it was just across the street to the courthouse, to get the story first-hand. And I was hardly a war reporter.

The reporter obviously has gotten more important than the report; can't risk having him actually go out and report something! Might get hurt ... or worse, might report the truth!

Can we please dig up Ernie Pyle, get some genetic matter and start a real journalist cloning program? Or maybe get the stars of Jackass, right, who apparently are afraid of nothing, to cover the war?

hat-tip: Wake Up America
Related Tags: War on Terror, Iraq, Media Bias, MSM