Army bars Stars and Stripes reporter from covering 1st Cav unit in Mosul
Stars and Stripes, Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Asserting that Stars and Stripes “refused to highlight” good news in Iraq that the U.S. military wanted to emphasize, Army officials have barred a Stripes reporter from embedding with a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division that is attempting to secure the violent city of Mosul.
Officials said Stripes reporter Heath Druzin, who covered operations of the division’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team in February and March, would not be permitted to rejoin the unit for another reporting tour because, among other things, he wrote in a March 8 story that many Iraqi residents of Mosul would like the American soldiers to leave and hand over security tasks to Iraqi forces.
Why Stripes won’t replace reporter barred by Army
If Star and Stripes editors gave in to the military and sent another reporter to Mosul in Heath Druzin’s place, everything the new reporter wrote would be suspect, says Stripes ombud Mark Prendergast. “Moreover, an unintended consequence might be that the substitute reporter, mindful of the pall of suspicion over him or her, might prove even more nettlesome than Druzin, to dispel suspicion and preserve his or her independence and professional reputation.”
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