WHY I HATE THE NEW YORK TIMES...CHAPTER 87

It paints "the military" as some faceless big brother organization destined for mind control.

The new technologies have had a potent impact on the military, ending its monopoly over the supply of news and entertainment for American troops serving in a foreign land whose borders include a language barrier.

Senior officers have responded with daily newsletters for unit commanders and the troops via e-mail. The American Forces Network continues to splice official messages into its satellite TV programming and mingle them with the songs on its radio station here.

Note the references to AFN radio and TV. The NYT would have you believe these messages "spliced in" are some sort of psycholigical warfare against our own troops. The author doesn't have the journalistic curiousity to find out that AFN wouldn't exist if it wanted to play the commercials in those slots.

We get programming for free from the networks and cable precisely because no advertiser is making a dime off the transmissions around the world. Leave the commercials in, and AFN is out of business because there is no budget to buy the programming. So, yes, they fill the "holes" with various spots targeted at the force...there are "tobacco is bad" spots, "don't drink and drive" spots, and news breaks with the leadership in DC, Florida (CENTCOM HQs) and Iraq getting their message across. What decent organization doesn't try to keep its workforce in formed? The last thing we want/need are soldiers who are just clueless and in the dark...rather like you, Mr. NYT Reporter.

Monopoly on news Mr. NYT reporter? The AFN News channel collects the feed directly from ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN and Fox. Explain how the "military" holds a monopoly on the news, Mr. NYT Reporter.

And we have, and have had since WWII the Stars and Stripes newspaper. It writes stories on the military that the NYT doesn't...stories that require the reporter to get right in the thick of things and learn these soldiers names. But Stripes also pulls stories from the AP and other wire services, as it has done for over 50 years, Mr. NYT reporter. So this doesn't represent a "new" technology to erode the "military's monopoly" over media, now does it genius? Interestingly, when CPT Patti was home for the brief period in December, she told me that most soldiers won't read Stripes because of all the negative and inaccurate stories in it. But when we disected that objection we found it was actually the Wire Service reports that torqued off the soldiers.

Frankly, you are so full of ignorance and bias you make me sick, and you do a grave disservice to the only national asset that can guarantee you the right to get up and freely speak your inaacuracies again tomorrow.

Thing is, there is a story to be told about the technology advances. Except you couldn't bring yourself to write it without slipping in your ignorant, liberal bias.

Pathetic.