[Media-watch] Journalist framed Rumsfeld armour question - CNN - 10/12/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/10/chattanooga.paper.ap/index.html

 Friday, December 10, 2004 Posted: 12:17 PM EST (1717 GMT)

Editor: Disclosure was needed on armor query

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (AP) -- A newspaper should have told its readers 
promptly that an embedded reporter had helped frame a question that a 
serviceman asked of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld this week in Kuwait, 
the publisher says.

The question to Rumsfeld from Spc. Thomas "Jerry" Wilson, 31, of Nashville, 
Tennessee complaining that many military vehicles in Iraq are not adequately 
armored, has touched off a storm of new publicity about the issue.

"In hindsight, information on how the question was framed should have been 
included in Thursday's story in the Times Free Press. It was not," the 
paper's publisher and executive editor, Tom Griscom, said in a note to 
readers published Friday.

Military affairs reporter Edward Lee Pitts, who is embedded with the 278th 
Regimental Combat Team, said he worked with guardsmen after being told 
reporters would not be allowed to ask Rumsfeld any questions.

Griscom said Pitts "used the tools available to him as a journalist to 
report on a story that has been and remains important to members
of the 278th and those back at home."

Pitts had sent an e-mail to co-workers back in Tennessee on Wednesday 
outlining his role.

"I was told yesterday that only soldiers could ask questions so I brought 
two of them along with me as my escorts," he wrote. "Before hand we worked 
on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor their 
vehicles going into combat have."

He also said he went to the officer running the question and answer session 
"and made sure he knew to get my guys out of the crowd."

But the story by Pitts published Thursday about the question to Rumsfeld 
made no mention of Pitts' own role.

The question from Wilson appeared to surprise Rumsfeld on Wednesday and 
prompted cheers among the soldiers listening to him in a hangar.

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap 
metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?" Wilson had 
said.

Rumsfeld said the Army was prodding manufacturers of vehicle armor to 
produce it quickly, but added, "You go to war with the Army you have, not 
the Army you might want or wish to have."

In commending Pitts' work, Griscom, who served as White House communications 
director under President Reagan, said Pitts "used what was available to him 
to get an answer to a story that we have covered and that has been 
important."

Kelly McBride, a member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute for 
Media Studies, said she did not fault the reporter for getting help with 
asking the question, but described the failure to include that information 
with his story as "dishonest with his
readers."

"I suspect some people would see it as manipulative," McBride said. "I 
suspect Rumsfeld felt manipulated."

Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said Rumsfeld gives reporters ample time to 
ask questions and that his appearance in Kuwait was for the soldiers.

"Town Hall meetings are intended for soldiers to have dialogue with the 
secretary of defense," Di Rita said. "It would be unfortunate to discover 
that anyone might have interfered with that opportunity, whatever the 
intention."

The reporter's e-mail also indicated Pitts was proud of his role in asking 
the question: "I just had one of my best days as a journalist today," he 
wrote. He said it "felt good" that the question and answer received so much 
attention from other media.