I've got mixed feelings about the media these days. I worked for years in an occupation constantly pestered by the press, where we told them only what we wanted them to know and they grudgingly accepted the situation. Nowadays they take as a right to be kept informed of every tiny development, and often do more harm than good speculating about issues when they don't have concrete facts. The Leslie Whittle kidnapping in the Black Panther case is a classic example where they were asked not to publish the kidnapping, but they went right ahead and sealed that poor girl's fate, playing the "public's right to know card" to a diastrous conclusion.
I also find it particularly galling to see military chiefs being barracked and criticised by the media at press conferences over operational matters which really shouldn't be their concern, but on the other hand I suppose it's preferable to losing 420,000 men as they did on The Somme, for a piece of ground of little tactical value, and we learn about it days and even weeks later. Someone worked out the gain was 2 lives per centimetre!
It's all about accountability these days, and in many respects it's no bad thing, but far too often it now seems to be a case of the tail wagging the dog.
