mil-bloggers and the MSM

one of the most gripping first hand accounts of the iraq war was from a mil-blog by cbftw. in his blog MY WAR, he gave some of the most intense descriptions of what it was like over there that i've read. at first, it was quite detailed, but then he was counseled to tone it down, so it was "we went somewhere, and did something" and then came back. even that was intense. the maturity he exhibited was amazing. well, i've finally found out who he is. he's a 28 year old from new york. no wonder his writing carried a sense of maturity. i was thinking 18, 19, maybe 20 on a stretch. he was 26 when in iraq.
and now, there's really good news. he is publishing a book this fall with his entries as the basis of the book. i really can't wait. i WILL be buying this one in hardcover, simply because i don't want to wait any longer than i have to, and the paperback won't be out until next year.
anyway there is an article from the usa today rag here that discusses his blog, his book, and military bloggers in general.
one of the things that stood out when i read the article was the following statement:

Also driving the growth: The feeling among some troops that the "mainstream media" aren't telling the whole story about what's happening in Iraq.

"Look at the run-up to the Iraqi elections," says Jason Van Steenwyk, a captain in the Florida National Guard who writes the blog Countercolumn. He served in Iraq from May 2003 to February 2004.
Before the Iraqi elections, Van Steenwyk believes, TV networks and newspapers focused on the potential for violence and low turnout. "But the soldier blogs," Van Steenwyk says, "were pretty optimistic. The people who weren't surprised when the elections went off as well as they did were the soldiers and the Iraqi people."

many of us that have contacts on that side of the world have been saying this all along. folks that only get their news from the big 3 or a major metropolitan newspaper like the NYT are not getting the straight story. i really don't understand why not, but i know why not. it seems as though the "press" is in default mode where everything the current government does is bad, and has to be reported in such a way as to bring maximum embarrassment or completely ignored if they are unable to spin it enough to show the military or the govt. the way they'd like.

i'm not saying that free speech should in anyway be affected. what i am saying is that by exercising their free speech and the freedom of the press in the manner most notably seen on cbs or cnn, we may eventually lose that freedom.