(Back in the USSR?): Homeland Security Will Embed Reporters

[lostnfound]

Yet another sign of creeping (creeping, crawling, lurching, lunging, galloping) totalitarianism. Won't it be a more convenient way for the state to control public perception than the mere censorship and intimidation tactics used during Hurricane Katrina?

Homeland Security Will Embed Reporters

by John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/27/2006 9:50:00 AM

Reporters will be embedded with the government during natural disasters, according to a plan outlined by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at the Radio-Television News Directors Association convention in Las Vegas.

Chertoff said that it is not a battleground so "we're not going to be censoring information." But he also said that he doesn't want "interference with our physical operations," according to RTNDA.

The administration came in for some heavy criticism from the media during its handling, or arguably mishandling, of the Katrina Hurricane crisis. Often, reporters seemed to know more about what was happening on the ground than the administration did, which led to some high-profile frustration from the journalists, most notably CNN's Anderson Cooper.

[Skidmore]

1. What are the chances the media will revolt?

[tsuki]

2. Slim...none. Put another zero on their contract, and they'll write

about the war on Santa Claus.

[hang a left]

3. Imbedded Limo Companies

Imbedded Prostitutes

Imbedded Presstitutes

[htuttle]

4. So now they have a plan for controlling the news coverage and 'message'

...but no plan for dealing with the disaster?

Typical.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

5. Please sir . . . more Orwell.

Kicked and Rec'd.

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. Thereby strictly limiting access to anything that might embarass

I will bet my "someday I will afford a house" fund that the only media allowed in must be accompanied with a HSA team to act as censors.

[leveymg]

7. K&R. When are they going to start shooting non-imbedded reporters

in disaster areas? Just to make a point.

"We knew there were no authorized media in the area. The camera he was holding looked like a looted camera, and we had our orders to shoot looters, so we had authorization under the emergency decree to take it out."

[lostnfound]

8. NBC News Anchor Brian Williams: police officers aimed weapons at media

According to the DemocracyNow! story that I referenced, during Hurricane Katrina, "NBC News Anchor Brian Williams reported on his blog, that police officers had been seen aiming their weapons at members of the media"

None killed, though.

[leveymg]

9. These things happen in increments. First, the military does it abroad,

and then these guys get demobilized and return to their jobs as police. The military training, attitudes and norms are brought home.

Only a matter of time, I'm afraid, before the trigger gets pulled.