Blogger slams media over phosphorous story failure

In an indication of how influential the blogging phenomenon has become, Mark Kraft, creator of the Livejournal blog, also told Press Gazette that one of his contacts, a US soldier, was threatened, demoted and told to not maintain a blog or read or reply to any others.

Kraft said: "It stuns me just how behind the story the press is on Iraq.

White phosphorous use in Fallujah was hardly a great secret.

"All the evidence was right there.

Anyone who investigated the matter on Google could have found it easily enough, but the US State Department denied it just the same. It was irresponsible of the media for not calling them on it earlier."

He said there seemed to be a strong reluctance among the media to actually investigate and confront discrepancies.

Kraft added that the large news organisations seemed unwilling to research and present uncomfortable facts that don't fit in with the popular consensus.

He said: "First-hand accounts of soldiers are ignored, but third- and fourth-hand spun accounts from official channels are parroted."

... These articles, and the Italian documentary Falluja: The Hidden Massacre, helped force the Pentagon to withdraw its denial earlier this month".

Good questions to the American press, often overpatriotic. And thanks to the Italian journalists that "relaunched" the story. 

Source: UK Press Gazette