Editors at the Los Angeles Times and two other newspapers protested the Pentagon decision to expel their reporters Wednesday from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the journalists were reporting on the weekend suicides of three prisoners.
Journalists from The Times, Miami Herald and Charlotte Observer all received permission from a local commander to be at the U.S. facility where terrorism suspects are held and interrogated. The three reporters and a photographer from the Charlotte paper left the island Wednesday on orders from the Pentagon.
A civilian spokeswoman at the Pentagon said the reporters had to leave the island in fairness to at least five other media outlets that wanted to cover the suicides but did not get permission from commanders at Guantanamo to do so.
"The Defense Department wants to be fair and impartial," said Cynthia Smith, a civilian spokeswoman for the department. "We got them on the next flight out of Guantanamo Bay to be fair to the rest of the media outlets that did not get a chance to go down there."
Smith said the situation could not have been resolved by granting all the reporters access to the prison. She said military personnel at Guantanamo were preoccupied with investigating the suicides and enhancing security and would not have had time to supervise the other journalists, who she said worked for Reuters, Associated Press, CNN and two British newspapers.
But the three newspapers that managed to have reporters at Guantanamo to cover the suicides said the military should be doing everything possible to increase public knowledge about the controversial island prison.
"Expelling Carol Williams and her colleagues represents a Stone Age attitude that only feeds suspicions about what is going on at Guantanamo," said Los Angeles Times Managing Editor Doug Frantz. "If the military hierarchy has nothing to hide, it should have respected the invitation extended by the [prison] commander and the professionalism of the journalists."
The military reported Saturday that three Mideastern prisoners had hanged themselves in their cells. The deaths led the military to cancel a hearing scheduled to begin Monday for an Ethiopian detainee.
Times reporter Carol Williams, Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg and at least five other journalists had been scheduled to travel to the island prison to cover that hearing.
The Washington-based press operatives for the Pentagon who grant access to such hearings revoked permission for all of the journalists to visit Guantanamo.
What can I say? This is how you control news and information to the press--you kick the reporters off Gitmo, and then if any more suicides take place at the American prison, you feed the press your own carefully censored, White House-approved talking points regarding this story. Any bad news that could seriously damage the Pentagon, or the Bush White House will be covered up. And even better yet, by eliminating all the bad news coming out of Gitmo, the Bush White House marketing team could concentrate on presenting happy news to the American public, and hope that the American public will respond positively to this happy news by improving Bush's poll numbers, and continue voting the Republicans into office in November's midterm elections.
And as for this First Amendment in the Bill of Rights? Toilet paper!
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