NYT Writes Up Michael Yon
The New York Times did a story on Michael Yon. Though generally positive, read carefully, especially between the lines, and the NYT disgusting bias can’t help but leak through.
Can’t wait to see what they say about Pat. Although predicting that would be easy.
They mention that Yon has racked up more time s an embedded reporter than anyone, ever. But I know a stat about Pat that nobody will top…heh heh, a “Stat About Pat”…Pat has more hours of footage of the USMC in a battle zone than anyone else in history.
It’s too bad there aren’t more peolpe like Yon, and Pat in the world. Fumento, Roggio, and most recently Totten come to mind. But in comparison to the number of mainstream media reporters that have been to Iraq since 2003, these guys are extremely rare.
An excerpt from the NYT article by Richard Perez-Pena:
Michael Yon was not a journalist, and he wasn’t sure what a blogger was. He had been in uniform but not in combat, and he wanted to keep it that way. He went to Iraq thinking he would stay for a month, and maybe find a way to write about the war after he got home.
Mr. Yon, however, does not work for any organization; no news outlet pays him for the hundreds of dispatches and photos he has produced. He publishes his work on his own Web site, michaelyon-online.com (some will appear again in a book set for release in April), and he also posts submissions from military people serving in Iraq. He says contributions from his readers have paid most of his costs, though he declines to say how much they have given.
Like most bloggers, Mr. Yon has an agenda, writing often that the United States’ mission to build a stable, democratic Iraq is succeeding and must continue. He rarely disparages those who disagree, though, and he does not shy away from describing the disturbing things he sees.
He sometimes criticizes United States forces, their Iraqi allies, and even decision makers in Washington; lately, he has warned that while the American focus is on Iraq, Afghanistan is being lost.
His upbeat outlook on the war has made Mr. Yon a favorite of the war’s supporters. But others in that camp have attacked him for insisting that Iraq is in a civil war, and for condemning American treatment of some detainees.
“His work has a remarkable, chin-out, unvarnished intimacy,†said Jackie Lyden, a National Public Radio reporter who has worked in Iraq. “He isn’t a guarded, diplomatically toned reporter; he can be very frank, and he questions his own assumptions.â€
The Internet has fostered such citizen journalism, shaking up ideas about where news comes from, but few have taken on the expense and danger of working in a war zone. Mr. Yon’s daily expenses are small, but he has paid tens of thousands of dollars for computers, cameras, phones and body armor.
He went to Iraq believing that the mainstream news media were bungling the story, and he still often criticizes the media’s pessimism. But he has also praised particular reporters from major outlets, or defended the media in general, explaining how difficult and dangerous it is to cover the war.
Nods to drillanwr.
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