Y does the frickin' media keep identifying military personnel who rag

[DemLikr]

on the Iraq operation?

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/today/localnews/stories/lo080603s1.shtml

This practice adds nothing to the story, gets people in serious trouble, and discourages others from following suit.

Theories?

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. The media have families too. You think they want their kids interrogated?

they are human beings, and they know very well what happens to people who defy the regime.

[arcane1]

2. I think you answered this yourself:

"gets people in serious trouble, and discourages others from following suit."

[pw]

4. Anonymous sources are generally a bad idea

Think of how much credibility you would give to an article that said "Some soldier somewhere said.... some other soldier in another unit said..." and so forth.

[Catherine Vincent]

3. It's just another way for the media to support Shrubnuts.

Damn the whiny military is their motto.

Bastards.

[jagguy]

5. do you think that is possible to be annomous

and more significantly, if reported that way it carries less weight.

[librechik]

6. Embedded reporters build trust with the guys

so they speak openly as if they were in a backstage environment, among friends and fellow team-members. If they say it a reporter can print it, that's the rules. That's also why the Pentagon is curtailing the embed program.

I think it's a good thing. There must be coverage of the real conditions there rather than the censored Pentagon version only.

This clamping down will be bad for us.

[tameszu]

7. At first, I don't think the reporters fully recognized the consequences...

...but it may also be that some soldiers are so pissed off that they're willing to go on record.

After all, as someone else mentioned--"the worst thing that can happen to you is they'll send you to Iraq..."