Interesting article by writer Eric M. Johnson, a Marine Corps Reservist on the Washington Post’s Iraq coverage (if it can be called that).

Don’t take my word for it that the Post?s reporting is substandard and superficial. Take the word of Philip Bennett, the Post’s assistant managing editor for foreign news. In a surprisingly candid June 6 piece, he admits that “the threat of violence has distanced us from Iraqis.” Further, “we have relied on Iraqi stringers filing by telephone to our correspondents in Baghdad, and on embedding with the military. The stringers are not professional journalists, and their reports are heavy on the simplest direct observation.” Translation: we are reprinting things from people we barely know, from a safe location dozens of miles away from the fighting.

UPDATE: The article was also published in the NY Post on Saturday, 7.3.2004.