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Reporter Manipulated Soldier's Question to Rumsfeld

Over the past several days the press has been filled with reports following the tough questions that were asked of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by U.S. soldiers during a Town Hall Meeting in Kuwait. However, Drudge and others are reporting that reporter Edward Pitts from the Chattanooga Times Free Press, coached one of the most candid and controversial soldiers. An excerpt, reportedly from the an email by the reporter states,

I just had one of my best days as a journalist today. As luck would have it, our journey North was delayed just long enough see I could attend a visit today here by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. I was told yesterday that only soldiers could ask questions so I brought two of them along with me as my escorts. Before hand we worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor their vehicles going into combat have. While waiting for the VIP, I went and found the Sgt. in charge of the microphone for the question and answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys out of the crowd.

So during the Q&A session, one of my guys was the second person called on. When he asked Rumsfeld why after two years here soldiers are still having to dig through trash bins to find rusted scrap metal and cracked ballistic windows for their Humvees, the place erupted in cheers so loud that Rumsfeld had to ask the guy to repeat his question. Then Rumsfeld answered something about it being "not a lack of desire or money but a logistics/physics problem." He said he recently saw about 8 of the special up-armored Humvees guarding Washington, DC, and he promised that they would no longer be used for that and that he would send them over here. Then he asked a three star general standing behind him, the commander of all ground forces here, to also answer the question. The general said it was a problem he is working on.

The unbiased press agent appears to brag about how the soldiers were later swarmed by MSM reporters who picked up the story he had been trying to tell "as soon as I found out I would be on an unarmored truck." Unfortunately, when Pitts filed his story on the event he failed to mention that he, being barred from questioning Rumsfeld, convinced the national guardsman to post the question [more].

While the sentiments that have now been expressed by the soldiers may or may not be true, there is a certain hypocrisy attendant with staging questions, prompting outrage and catalyzing controversy for the purpose of reporting the same. In this case, the news was editorialized according to the preconceived notions of a reporter and then replicated through-out the mainstream media.

Other reports:

Washington Post - Two media analysts said Pitts should have disclosed his role in the story he wrote.

Rush Limbaugh - So all this talk about how this soldier had the courage to ask this question is a complete farce. It was a setup by a reporter upset that the vehicle he's riding on didn't have any armor.

USA Today - The newspaper reporter also apparently helped make sure that the soldier was called on Wednesday during Rumsfeld's question-and-answer session with U.S. troops in Kuwait.

NewsMax - "They [the soldiers] spoke for themselves," according to Pitt's publisher, Tom Griscom.

Washington Times - The Pentagon responded Thursday evening, saying it would be "unfortunate to discover that anyone might have interfered" with the troops opportunity to ask questions of the defense secretary "whatever the intention."

New York Post (op ed) - The Chattanooga Times Free Press did the nation no service by reducing this debate to a gotcha-game played in the Kuwaiti desert — and the liberal media are compounding the damage by distorting what it was that Rumsfeld said.

Posted by tim at December 9, 2004 11:41 PM

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