Why does anyone care what Michael Savage thinks about embedding reporters? Admittedly, I’m happy to criticize the military on some things, but I think the generals are capable of making the correct operational security issues.
On the Arnett issue, yeah, Arnett said some pretty stupid things. I think the biggest issue from National Geographic is probably that he didn’t clear it and for MSNBC, well, he should have known to parse his comments better. There is a serious question of journalist ethics at issue, but let’s be real, the problem was his specific comment.
I’m not even that particularly comfortable with as strong of a conclusion as he made being said over Iraqi television. If he had qualified that a particular tactic hadn’t worked, that would be different.
From the journalistic ethics point of view, he became more of a story than a reporter and that is never good.
Finally, the good news, Nathan Bierma confirmed to me that Keith Olbermann is back on MSNBC. That almost makes up for hiring Savage.
On a note about Nathan, I’ve long been confused as to why the Redeye in Chicago is so concentrated on the deadtree version. I think that might be a part of increasing young readership, but a key component of building young readers is interactivity. A blog, like Nathan’s, would be an excellent tool to build the brand. Apparently, the Trib Company doesn’t get that. Too bad.