Didn't see a link, but came across this piece in the Washington Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060717-124948-7563r.htm Hattip to Michael Fumento from his weblog: http://fumento.com/weblog/ "One retired officer attendee made notes and e-mailed his minutes of the session to other officers. The notes say there was general agreement on one issue: the "mainstream media" largely ignores progress. A commander said an embedded reporter filed a generally positive story on the operation in Tal Afar, only to see his stateside editors gut it and apply a negative spin. In fact, editors have grown increasingly resistant to embedding reporters with combat units, something they demanded be done before the invasion in March 2003. The purported reason: They think contact with U.S. service members hurts the reporters' objectivity. "They come to see the world through the eyes of the troops," said the retired officer's e-mail. Now, newspapers and magazine rely heavily on Iraqi stringers who telephone in reports from various combat scenes. "We are clearly winning the fight against the insurgents, but we are losing the public relations battle, both in the war zone and in the States," said the e-mail." There doesn't seem too be any blindness from most Army commanders as they acknowledege that problems still do persists, as end of the article states: "Insurgent infiltration of the Iraqi Security Forces is also a big problem. A Green Beret caught a police lieutenant directing by telephone the placement of an IED so it would damage a coalition convoy." Which is only too be expected, in an operation of this scope and magnitude! But, the perspective of what is trying too be accomplished in iraq & afghanistan has been largely ignored in most media report's since day one. Seeing that they're the ones who are putting their lives on the line every day, it's a pity that as our soldiers, they're the ones who are looked down upon by quite a few editors or journalists, as having no input too add... unless it fits into or is capable of being spun into their biased world view! In essence, the ones who sacrafice the most for humanity & a good cause, are thought of the least, by those who gain the most from their protection. Such is the cluelessness that exists in most media newsrooms!

posted from a diff computer than i read the wapo piece on. seems i spend my days moving from one computer to another to work from. if you are interested the wash post piece talked about the results of how we interpret incoming information. the part i found interesting was exactly the same article (chosen to be evenhanded) drew the bitterest complaints of bias from both sides. blatantly biased articles on the other hand were dismissed out of hand if they disagreed with a person's position or endorsed as accurate if they agreed.