At first I thought Bill Roggio was getting a little too riled up about the Washington Post story that mentions his recent trip to Iraq. To be sure, the factual problems are annoying. Mentioning Bill in a piece that also talks about paying for stories in Iraqi media is annoying also, but the article makes it clear that they are two different aspects of the information side of the war. Right? I mean it's clear to me that they are different.
I guess not. Taylor Marsh links to the story and says this:
Buying bloggers is the answer? That's absurd, especially when no one doubts that our military is doing an amazing job. The challenge isn't our military efforts. It's the political efforts.
It says bloggers were bought?
Think Progress links with this:
Administration embedding conservative bloggers with troops to publish favorable news about Iraq.
Read the comments if you have the stomach.
Last but certainly not least, firedoglake links with this:
Shorter WaPo: The US Government is willing to pay just about anyone -- Iraqi news stations, right-thinking bloggers, whatever -- to get out the message that they want you to hear. Your tax dollars at work, in a mass-e-mail campaign or newscast or blogwhore near you.
Blogwhore. What a freakin' slimy idiot.
I'm sure there are more I could cite. The Post writers can correctly claim that the article says nothing about Roggio being paid or that he was embedded to write favorable stories. By mixing two very different issues though, embedded blogger and paid Iraqi stories, they(intentionally or not) invited the above mentioned shallow readers to conflate them. I was wrong and Roggio has every right to be displeased.
I doubt very much that those who run the Post will remove themselves from the bubble they work in and understand the issues that Roggio has laid out. I also doubt that they will comprehend why some 700 of us(yes, I made a small donation) coughed up $33,000 to fund his trip. I guess they are too busy trying to understand why newspaper revenues in general are going down to get it: If they were giving us the context, analysis, and information that Bill Roggio is providing, perhaps we'd be giving them some of that money instead.
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