Pentagon Manages Press With Reporter Trainings

The Pentagon is training civilian reporters on its military bases for war reporting. "One hundred twenty journalists trained last November at the Quantico Marine Corps Base and the Norfolk Naval Station; another wave of reporters trained last month at Fort Benning, and another session is scheduled this month at Fort Dix in New Jersey," Democracy Now reports. "The training teaches reporters battlefield survival, military policy and weapons expertise." In a lively roundtable discussion on Democracy Now with military reporters and a Pentagon spokesperson, Harper's publisher Rick MacArthur calls the Pentagon's reporter training "innovative public relations" and a "con job."