The Nation: Walter Reed Scandal: How Mainstream Media Let Us Down

[babylonsister]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070326/wexler

Walter Reed Scandal: How Mainstream Media Let Us Down

Celia Viggo Wexler



You would have to be dead or on the moon not to have heard about the appalling living conditions and Byzantine red tape that dogs wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The explosion of news about these conditions began on Sunday, February 18, with a front-page story in the Washington Post.

In this story and a follow-up the next day, the Post documented the plight of wounded soldiers who, as outpatients, find themselves in a medical limbo, living in buildings plagued by mold, peeling paint and rodents as they wait endlessly for medical appointments and government paperwork that will help them get their lives back in order. The series provoked huge coverage from other media, prompted House hearings, caused the firings of the top brass at the Medical Center and the resignation of the Army Secretary.

The series has been hailed as a testament to the power of a free press. And it does demonstrate what happens when a powerful newspaper like the Post takes on an issue.

So this is how things are supposed to work, right? Crusading reporters uncover major problems with veterans' care. The stories provoke enormous attention and arouse the interest of Congress. Heads roll, the President says he is angry and demands immediate change, and the painters and mold removers are all over Walter Reed's outpatient buildings.

Well, not exactly. Before this story became something the mainstream media dined on, it had simmered a very long time on the back burner.

Mark Benjamin, now a reporter at the online magazine Salon, wrote his first story about the horrendous living conditions of wounded soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia, for United Press International in 2003. In early 2005, Benjamin wrote a searing Salon story about the suicide of a combat veteran angry and discouraged by the treatment he was getting at Walter Reed. Another of Benjamin's stories, dated January 27, 2005, blasted an Army policy of charging some outpatients for their meals. Within the context of that story, Benjamin touched on many of the issues that the Post would target two years later.

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[UpInArms]

1. DU: Extort the Troops Edition - September 22, 2003

http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/03/127.html

The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 127)
September 22, 2003
Extort the Troops Edition

How's this for screwed up priorities? We've can afford to give a massive tax cut to the rich, but the Pentagon (1) is making wounded soldiers pay for their meals while they're in the hospital. Shame! And speaking of shame, you know how the Bush Administration spent the last two years trying to convince us that Iraq was behind 9/11? Dick Cheney (2,7) said it on TV just last week. Well, forget it ever happened, because Bush (3,4) and the rest of his administration are telling us that they never, ever made the connection. Riiiight. Rounding out the list, we've got perennial Top-10 favorites Fox News (6), Arnold (8), Roy Moore (9) and Pat Roberston (10). As usual, don't forget the key!

and

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/11/p/04_airbrush.html

excerpt:

It is amazing that people can watch a plastic surgeon take a chisel and break someone's facial bones, but not be allowed to view the returning caskets of our military personnel that have made the greatest personal sacrifices for their country.

Cameras are not allowed at The Walter Reed Army Hospital to show the maimed and injured soldiers. Cameras are not allowed to show the returning caskets of our honorable fallen heroes. The media is not allowed to show the conditions at Fort Stewart, where military personnel wait for treatment that is scarce to nonexistent.

It is taking an act of Congress to stop the Pentagon from charging our wounded military $8.10 a day for their meals while they are hospitalized. Will it take another to supply the toilet paper that must be bought during their incapacitation also?

Although these are grave injustices to our service men and women, perhaps the most horrendous lack is that of protective body armor. Nearly 32,500 troops have not been issued appropriate equipment that would prevent their deaths.

This shoddy treatment is disgraceful and must be rectified.

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[babylonsister]

2. Good memory/nice find!

:toast: DU, ahead of the curve, as usual.

[UpInArms]

3. DU is the leader!

The msm didn't want to rock the dimson's boat - but if the people had just been given the truth all that has come to pass would not have done so.

:(

So sad for the people that are now dead and those that are suffering because of the complicit silence of all of those "journalists".