Ombudsman: Battle brews over 1st Amendment on the battlefield

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Ombudsman: Battle brews over 1st Amendment on the battlefield
By Mark Prendergast, Stars and Stripes ombudsman

With George W. Bush gone from the White House, "now is the time to renegotiate the rules of engagement between the military and the media," the head of The Associated Press recently declared. "Now is the time to insist that the First Amendment does apply to the battlefield."

The AP executive, CEO Tom Curley, argues that the military has "weaponized information" and that President Barack Obama must rein in the Pentagon. By way of example, Curley cites a recent AP report on a $4.7 billion effort to influence opinion "in favor of U.S. military endeavors," such as the intensifying conflict in Afghanistan.

"Now is the time to resist the propaganda the Pentagon produces and live up to our obligation to question authority and thereby protect our democracy," he said. "Now is the time for the media to sit down with the military and determine a workable set of ground rules that serve the American people."

Curley has a distinguished record as an advocate of news media and First Amendment causes. And as head of the world’s largest newsgathering operation, his words and sentiments will carry weight in any renewed discussions of press-military relations and will no doubt inform individual journalists’ confrontations with balky military officials.

Indeed, his speech, given Feb. 6 at the University of Kansas and reported in an AP dispatch carried by Stars and Stripes, is a call to arms, so to speak, for journalists to prevail upon Obama and the military to loosen the rules governing access and "to insist that the First Amendment does apply to the battlefield."


Rest of article (with lots of links) at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=60803