Montana n: A state of the northwest United States bordering on Canada. Admitted as the 41st state in 1889. The fourth largest state in the union, it includes vast prairies and numerous majestic mountain ranges.
Syn: Treasure State, Big Sky Country, Last Best Place.
Jones n: slang. An addiction or very deep craving.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Conversation with Major M. II
- Me:
- It sounds like you made some good headway during your time in Baghdad. Why the hell don't we ever hear about this over here?
- Major M.
- Let me tell you, we are frustrated to no end by that over there. A lot of people over there are getting pretty torqued because no one back home hears about what they are doing. The news only reports what is blowing up, not what is getting rebuilt.
- Me:
- Yeah, I've been learning not to trust the media.
- MM
-
We had some embedded reporters with us from time to time and when we went out on these missions we would invite them to go out with us and they would always ask "do you think you will get in a fight?" and we would say "no, hope not." And they would turn us down.
There was always some animosity there between us, it's like they saw us as the big bad army always trying to skew their message with disinformation and we really couldn't care less about their message. We were just trying to help them out, help them do their jobs as reporters and take them out and show them what we were doing. These reporters come out to Iraq intent on reporting a certain story and when we tried to show them what we were doing and invite them along they felt like we were trying to side track them from their message and blow smoke.
I had a conversation with one guy and he told me straight up not to bother inviting them on these missions where we were getting things done because his editor back in the states had the policy "if it ain't smoking or bleeding we don't want to report it."
And anytime we would try to correct some facts in their story they would cry censorship. I am now of the opinion that freedom of the press means freedom to print whatever the hell you want. True or not. There are a million reporters all shoveling a million bullshit wrong opinions on what is going on.
- Me:
- Out of all those media voices there ought to be one or two telling it like it is.
- MM
- There is. His name is Mike Francis and he works for the Portland Oregonian. He is a straight up guy and he reported facts.
There is more Jones in the archives: February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 December 2009 January 2010 May 2014
