This seems like a really bad idea.

In today's NYTimes, I read a story about NBC, ABC and CBS have pull most of their news operations out of Iraq.  Here's a quote from the story:

Joseph Angotti, a former vice president of NBC News, said he could not recall any other time when all three major broadcast networks lacked correspondents in an active war zone that involved United States forces.

Wow.  The United States has 130,000 soldiers in Iraq (Which means how many more "contractors"?) and the three networks can't find the story there.  Yes, I do understand that the three network news organizations do not have the same responsibilities, influence, scope, budget, power, whatyouwill as they used to have.  (I have been paying attention during the past twenty years, I assure you.)  Nevertheless, it strike me as 1. fascinating and 2. disappointing that our war in Iraq can't sustain the interest of these news organizations. 

Here's another quote from the story: 

In the early months of the war, television images out of Iraq were abundant. “But clearly, viewers’ appetite for stories from Iraq waned when it turned from all-out battle into something equally important but more difficult to describe and cover,” Ms. Arraf said. She recalled hearing one of her TV editors say, “I don’t want to see the same old pictures of soldiers kicking down doors.”

“You can imagine how much more tedious it would be to watch soldiers running meetings on irrigation,” she said.

So, I was a journalist for about sixty seconds, but I understanding a few things about journalism and one of these is the idea of competitiveness.  A competitive journalist would allow himself to be spoonfed the minutes from the irrigation meeting and you, dear reader, don't believe that the irrigation meeting is the best story in Iraq today either.

Here's the real danger:  Imagine what a public relations organization can do to shape the news when reporters aren't around to actively cover the story.  Reporters sources narrow down to those who can afford to stay in touch with the reporter, since the reporter can't stay in touch with the sources.  The military then has a tremendous advantage over the "man in the street" in Baghdad. The military can paper news organizations with photographs, statements, updates, responses.  I assure you, the people in the military responsible for managing the media in Iraq haven't had such a triumph since they came up with the idea of embedding reporters during the initial invasion. 

Here's the link to the story.