We should DEFINATELY allow the media to report on war. This is how we learn about how abuses occur and keep a check on how the people running things are doing.

Just finished watching The Last King of Scotland. Great reason for reporter to stick their noses in places they are told not to.

Joe the Plummer has never impressed me with his cognitive skills.
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Of course! People shouldn't have to see all the messy parts of war like people getting their limbs blown off and pieces of children scattered about the street. War reporting is why people rose up against Vietnam, so unless you want people to be against war, you'd better not let them see it.

In fact, let's not even call it war because that's such a loaded term, let's call it "defending democracy". People like democracy, and the word defended makes it sound like we aren't the aggressor.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm

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I think that we need more independent news sources to report on EVERYTHING.

The Internet has brought us much, much closer than we've ever been to uncensored independent news, but good or bad, our media is still directed and controlled.

There are a lot of conspiracy theories that have been the result of this line of thinking however the more people that (especially individuals) report on something, the public will benefit.

Blogs, wiki's, digg's, Mahalo's, etc are all contributing to a shift in the way people observe news. Most people who are consistently exposed to a variety of news sources determine the _average_ of that news.

So if Fox reports that the War is over, but a couple of blogs report that the War was just escalated, these people believe that the real answer is likely somewhere in between. This combined with honest, independent sources are important to the "real time revolution" that is happening.

The problem is already censorship. Not necessarily by our governments but by the people who make money from news.
Source(s):
This is a completely subjective answer. But I thought it would be ok because it's something I feel passionately about and the question leads one down the path of subjectivity :-)

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War is unpleasant. Battlefield scenes, American, civilian, even enemy casualties, bombed out buildings are not the sort of things we want in our living rooms during family time.

Which is exactly why they should be available 24/7 for every conflict we are in. One of the major problems with the American mindset* is that we have an "over there" mentality because we are surrounded by oceans and relatively peaceful, quiet national neighbors. This leads us to have more of an island/isolation mentality than many would probably like to admit. Without constant media coverage of the bloody, horrible, atrocious aspects of war, we can slip comfortably back into our "over there" mentality and not worry ourselves too much about it.

It does not matter whether you support our current wars, or any war, having access to what is going on is the only way to make informed decisions for your part in our democracy (or Republic, you still get to write your representatives and choose to vote for them again). Taking the media out of the equation only hurts your ability to make informed decisions.

If you choose not to think about the war(s), not to watch the material you find objectionable, that is a choice you made. I am not suggesting that you need to watch wholesale slaughter to decide war is bad.. But by removing media coverage, your only (nominally) unbiased, or at least 3rd party, source of information, you no longer have the choice to watch the footage, because it does not exist. The availability of information of information is always better than its absence.


* Footnote: This is my opinion, based on having spent many months abroad and building strong long-term friendships with natives of other countries who are not afraid to tell me their opinions, or send me newspaper articles, etc.
Source(s):
Personal experience, understanding of the need for an informed electorate.

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I'll be the odd man out here. I don't think that the media should be banned; however, I think that they should voluntarily exercise much more common sense than they have used over the last 10 years or so. It's not entertainment. It's war. Those aren't actors, and the explosions aren't CGI. There are real people there, and broadcasting too much really could change outcomes. What if the landing at Normandy had been splashed across the front page 18 hours before it happened?

The media seems to think they somehow deserve access to top secret information, and then think they should be able to broadcast it. This isn't blowing the cover on child labor factories, like 100 years ago. 90 years ago, if reporters had blabbed about troop movements, they would have been tried as traitors. Today, they are allowed to make up complete fiction about their political enemies.

Do I think they'll voluntarily exercise common sense about what they disseminate? No. I think to them it's all another story, another chance to win an award, another chance to discredit someone.
Source(s):
purely opinion

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I like the constitution on this one. However, Joe is entitled to express his opinions on the issue. I don't necessarily disagree with that. I agree with national sovereignty and Israel should have the right to ban reporting in their country or anything else they vote on. Whether the people living in Israel agree is another issue. It would also depend on the context of what "war reporting" truly means. We don't have wars anymore in the classical sense since those decisions are often deflected to the president. If we have a war on drugs does that mean a reporter should access your medical records for prescription use? What about a foreign reporter? Unless I missed something we aren't at war with Israel, so I could see where Israel wouldn't want foreign people in their country "war reporting" and be concerned with their intentions.

As far as being an imbecile and go away, I've never met the man so he is away. Although, he might not want to claim that war reporting shouldn't be allowed if he's a war reporter. Then he's just overhead.
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I definitely don't think the media should be banned from reporting on the war. For that matter, I think the American people aren't exposed to as much information about the war as we should be--especially visual media considering that many people seem to comprehend matters much better if photos and/or videos are available. (After all, a picture is worth a million words.) We are heavily disconnected from the the conflicts that occur in Iraq--for that matter, all of the Middle East--and we are quite apathetic to the needs of these people and the troops who are fighting these horrendous battles.

I can honestly say that I'm disappointed that the American people aren't as outraged by this war as they ought to be. During the Vietnam era, people were very actively protesting that conflict; in general, things have been awfully quiet in regards of Iraq. While we are living in different times than were during the Vietnam conflict, many of the atrocities of war in Iraq echo that of Vietnam. I truly think that part of the reason why we've been so quiet at the moment has to do with the regard that we aren't hearing or seeing much about what is going on in Iraq. During the Vietnam era, the America people were regularly exposed to what was happening. Horrific footage and grisly photographs of the conflict were a regular sight; I think these actions helped people better understand what was happening.

I know that images of destroyed buildings and people with horrific wounds aren't pretty and can be hard to stomach, but seeing them helps prevent us from denying what is happening and prevents us from living the illusion that things everywhere are as good as they are in the U.S. The truth is more often grim than it is pretty, though it's incredibly dangerous to live in denial and ignorance.
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Poor Joe. He isn't a plumber, and now he's an anti-media "war correspondent". I've yet to see an issue where he shows an ounce of sense, let alone knowledge.

Yes, the media should report wars and all the awful details of the battlefield. There's a reason that the freedom of the press is the first amendment - without it the others are more vulnerable. They should actually deluge us with the things we really don't want to hear - finances, conflicts, and images of the human cost of war. Without these things, war - and our fellow human beings - become an abstraction that we judgments on based on snappy bumper stickers. We - through our elected officials - send our fellow citizens to war, and it's our responsibility to know all of the ramifications of that decision.

Ideally, war correspondents would be non-intrusive and pose no risk to the troops. Mostly, I think they do that. Every once in awhile, some bonehead pseudo-journalist screws up*, but without media we would be happy in the knowledge that our troops were met with candy and flowers, that the war cost less than $1000, and that Saddam had a nuclear weapon pointed at the U.S. when the troops got there. Their presence is crucial. Joe's is not.
Source(s):
* Geraldo Rivera
Constitution

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