Pentagon ejects journalists from base

The Pentagon has ejected the Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer reporter who broke the story of suicides at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Reporter Michael Gordon and photographer Todd Sumlin were the only US journalists at the base when three detainees hanged themselves Saturday. They had been working on a profile of a jail commander and had clearance to be on the base for six days, the Observer said. The two Observer staffers along with reporters from the Miami Herald and Los Angeles Times were ordered by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld to take a military transport plane from the base to Miami Wednesday morning. A Pentagon press officer said Gordon caused ‘controversy’ with his insider reports and there was also a problem with other media demanding the same access. ‘The Pentagon appears to have panicked when it discovered it couldn’t manipulate a first-class reporter, so it shoved him and all other press out,’ Observer Editor Rick Thames said. (UPI, Editor and Publisher,June 15, 2006)

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>