H: Joe, before we went to break, I wanted to read you this from General Mattis. “I was talking to a lieutenant in Haditha,” he told the San Diego County reporter, “He told me that because they are now all connected nowadays, and they’re FOB’s [sic? Probably means FOBs as in Forward Operating Bases, trv], he could read stories about Haditha.” He said, “I guarantee you there has not been a reporter in Haditha in my last two and a half months here. We are seeing,” the general continued, “I think, an unwitting passing of the enemy’s message, a critical, unwitting passing of the enemy’s message, because the enemy has successfully denied the Western media access to the battlefields. I’m not sure what Lloyds of London is charging now. I think it’s over $5,000 dollars a month insurance for a reporter or photographer to go in. But the murder, the kidnapping, the intimidation means that in many cases, we have media folks who are relying on stringers who are Iraqi. Now you can have any kind of complaint about the American media or Western media you want, but there is at least a nod, an effort, towards objectivity. The stringers who are being brought in, who are bringing in these stories, are not bringing in the same degree of objectivity. So on the one hand, our enemy is denying our media access to the battlefield, where anything, perhaps, that I say as a general is subject to any number of interpretations, challenges, questions. But the enemy’s story, basically, gets out there without that, because our media is unable to challenge them. It’s unwitting, but at the same time, it can promote the enemy’s agenda, simply because there is an apparent attempt at objectivity.” Now Joe, without debating the specifics of what the general’s saying here, he is putting forward the proposition that in fact, mainstream media is terribly broken because they’re giving the appearance of covering what’s going on in Iraq, when in fact they’re relying on Iraqi stringers.

JR: You know, I’m certainly not going to argue with the general who is on the ground and has all the facts. And again, my general argument is in terms of opinion and comment. If you look at the analysis of the Iraqi situation, I think what you’ll find in the mainstream media has largely been more realistic, and more rigorous, than what you’ll find in the blogs.

HH: Well, actually, again, I have to disagree with you, because Mudville Gazette spent a year in country as a sergeant there, a number of mil-bloggers are over there from chaplains to generals. For example, I interviewed John Abizaid at length, put it all up on the blog, got his message out there without the filter that you folks tend to put in the way, you folks being mainstream media people. And in fact, Michael Yon, Roggio, the rest of them, they run circles around your folks. And Bill Roggio just spent…embedded with the Iraqi army, for goodness sake, in Fallujah. That’s after a tour in Afghanistan, another tour in Iraq this year. I think maybe there are some isolated instances of good reporting coming out of Iraq by mainstream media people, but I think unless you can come up with three people who have done the same kind of ground-breaking work, or four people that I’ve just cited, I actually think you’re wrong. Are you open to the prospect that you’re wrong on that?

JR: I’m always open to the prospect that I’m wrong. I just don’t see an argument supported by three or four people versus the entire apparatus of the mainstream media. And I guess the other point is, I don’t think that anybody would read my article and come away saying that the mainstream media is infallible, or that it even always does a good job, or even sometimes does a good job. The point, rather, was that the institution, the way that they filter things, tends to increase seriousness and expertise in the purveying of opinion and comment, and I just don’t see that on the internet.

HH: Well, it sounds to me like you’re making the argument that because the mainstream media spends a lot of money maintaining bureaus in Iraq, they must therefore be doing good work.

JR: No, I don’t think that’s it at all. I’m saying that they have an institutional support which vastly increases the professional reporting.

HH: But again, I don’t think that’s by any means at all evident. If you’ve got Roggio running around Fallujah, typing up his notes every night, where you’ve got Michael Yon in Mosul, or you’ve got Totten running around Kurdistan or Lebanon, typing up their notes and putting it out there, the fact that you’ve got a thousand journalists in the Green Zone doesn’t negate the comparable quality of both of those things. I trust the three Americans who are out in the combat land, and I trust military bloggers, of whom there are legions, much, much more than Green Zone bound journalists. Do you?

JR: I certainly think you have to take both into perspective. You know, I am certainly not going to disparage military bloggers, or disparage Bill Roggio, or anything like that. And again, I’m making a general argument here.

HH: Here’s part of your argument on that. “Blogs pursue second order distractions, John Kerry always providing useful material, while leaving unexamined more fundamental issues, say, Iraq.” Joe, we’ll go to break and we’ll come back. But was John Kerry’s assertion that he’d been to Cambodia on Christmas Eve a second order distraction?

HH: Joe, as I said going into the break, you wrote in your piece from last week, “Blogs pursue second order distractions, John Kerry always providing useful material, while leaving unexamined more fundamental issues, say, Iraq.” When John Kerry made the assertion that he’d spent Christmas Eve in Cambodia, was that a second order distraction for the blogs to go out and conclusively prove that he hadn’t?

JR: No, I don’t think so. What I was referring to in that remark was that John Kerry’s comments before the election, you know, that if you’re stupid, you’ll get stuck in Iraq. You know, that comment.

HH: And do you think that, for example, a more fundamental issue like whether or not Iran goes critical with nukes, is that being better covered by the internet bloggers or by the mainstream media?

JR: I think it’s being covered very well by experts. You know, they’re the people we run on the editorial page, they’re people in academia, they’re people in the government. And I think they’re doing a much better job than a blogger.

HH: So are you familiar with Regime Change Iran?

JR: I’m not.

HH: It works comprehensively to bring news from all around the world concerning Iran, including the best in commentary and analysis. Are you familiar with Victor Davis Hanson?

JR: Of course.

HH: How about Michael Ledeen at AEI?

JR: Sure.

HH: Both of these men are bloggers. They blog prolifically, in fact, and they both have their own blogs. Are they doing a better job? Or are you actually saying that the same thing is being done in both media?

JR: I’m saying the same thing is done in both media. And you know, when you have someone like Victor Davis Hanson, Michael Ledeen, Michael Barone has a blog now, the Becker-Pozner blog, they’re experts who are using technology in new and innovative ways. And they’re doing a very good job of it. I don’t anyone would disagree. But I don’t see that level of quality in the blogosphere as a whole.

HH: But again, when we talk about level of quality, you want to stand up the best of the mainstream media against the worst of the blogosphere. That does not seem to be the argument.