Score One for Bill Roggio

USA Today’s Baghdad correspondent, Caesar Soriano, isn’t happy. Soriano feels that criticism of the mainstream media for their negative coverage of the Iraq war is the collective effort of “chairborne rangers,” basement dwellers to whom Soriano challenges:

If you think you can do better, I’ve got a spare bed in the Baghdad bureau.

Bill Roggio, the independent journalist currently embedded in Afghanistan, didn’t take kindly to Soriano’s jab. Bill fowarded me his sharply worded reply to Soriano this morning, a communique that USA should strongly consider publishing.

Hello Cesar,

I’d take you up on the offer of “the spare bed in the Baghdad bureau” but this Chairborne Ranger is currently embedded in Kandahar, Afghanistan. I’ll head back to Iraq for the second time this year after I make my next stop in the Horn of Africa. No doubt Michael Totten and Michael Yon, two other notable Chairborne Rangers, have similar plans.

You should also ask another group of Chairborne Rangers, such as Smash, Greyhawk, OpFor, and the other military bloggers who did their blogging from the combat zones to see if they need a rack. Oh, and I’ll be bypassing Baghdad to go outside the comfort of the hotel, so you can keep the spare bed.

Best wishes, be safe and enjoy the pool!

Bill Roggio

Co-Editor, The Counterterrorism Blog

http://counterterrorismblog.org

Co-Chairman, The Counterterrorism Foundation

http://counterterrorismblog.org/foundation.php

Blackfive also posted Bill’s reply, and included a rather hefty list of MSM-critical milbloggers who are currently deployed in-theater or have recently been deployed in-theater.

Soriano’s point is a mild mutation of the old “chickenhawk” line, designed to pack a heavier punch since he reports from Baghdad. But Roggio touches on an issue that was heavily discussed at the milblogging conference last April, the simple fact that most MSM reporters and stringers in Iraq attend CENTCOM briefings from within the safety of the Green Zone, rarely -if ever- leaving “the wire” to get the nitty-gritty stories.

Credit to Soriano for getting out there and doing his job. But if he’s really, truly interested in countering allegations of biased reporting, he needs to stop writing egotistical puff-pieces, get outside the wire, and report on stories that aren’t spoon fed from CENTCOM public affairs officers.