MARC DANZIGER WRITES IN THE EXAMINER, about journalism today:

Personally, I see journalists at the New York Times first and foremost as fellow citizens with whom I share obligations. The notion that they don’t see me the same way causes me a lot of concern.

In World War II, Ernie Pyle found and publicized flaws in our military — but he did it in the context of supporting the larger war effort. In Vietnam, Joe Galloway spent his first night in the field as a journalist manning a machine gun emplacement.

That’s not what we ought to expect from our media today. We don’t need journalists as cheerleaders (not that Pyle or Galloway ever were) or as combatants. But I do know that a lot of us would feel better about the criticism leveled by the media at things the U.S. is doing if we were sure that — in the event of an ambush by enemies determined to kill some of us — they wouldn’t just see it as a good story.

Indeed.