McChrystal: Was Rolling Stone wrong to expose him?

Some members of the media say the reporter who brought down Gen. McChrystal recklessly broke an "unspoken" agreement to protect the military

Best Opinion:  The Atlantic, Salon, Rolling Stone

More fallout from Rolling Stone's controversial profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal that led to his resignation: Now, CBS News' Lara Logan, who worked with the general and his staff as an embedded reporter in Afghanistan, has lambasted the reporter behind it, saying that Michael Hastings violated an "unspoken agreement" that war reporters won't embarrass the military command by including damning remarks. Do Hastings and Rolling Stone deserve the scolding by Logan and other members of the press? (Watch Lara Logan, CBS News' Chief Foreign Correspondent, lash out against Rolling Stone)

Logan makes a good point: In the aftermath of Rolling Stone's piece, military officers will "shy away from reporters," compromising the public's understanding of war, says Max Fisher in The Atlantic. And that's "bad for the military, the media, and the Americans that both institutions are meant to serve." Without healthy, informed discourse about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, "our prospects for salvaging some good from these difficult years of fighting" will suffer.
"War reporting is about to change for the worse"

Logan's forgotten who she's working for: The difference between Logan and Hastings' reporting philosophy, says Glenn Greenwald in Salon, perfectly "illustrate[s] the two poles of journalism: those who view their role as exposing the relevant secrets of the powerful (Hastings) and those who view their role as protecting those secrets and serving the interests of those officials (Logan)." Hastings' view, however, is "what journalism is supposed to be." Logan has done some "good and courageous reporting." But now, "she clearly sees herself as part of the government and military, rather than an adversarial watchdog over it." And that's a shame.
"The two poles of journalism"

The military is not exactly ill-equipped to control the message: In Logan's perverted view, a war commander must trust a reporter or he can't "possibly feel confident that the right message will get out," says Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. She seems to be forgetting about the Pentagon's nearly $5-billion a year P.R. budget deployed by 27,000 people and "the near-total acquiescence of all the major media companies."
"Lara Logan, you suck"

 

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