Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: For readers and writers

Thursday, Feb. 28, 2002 | 8:56 a.m.

JOURNALIST ED OFFLEY, an experienced newspaper reporter of military affairs, has written a book that should be required reading for military writers and news hounds. "Pen & Sword" covers almost everything from knowing the military and how to cover it. There is even a chapter and lengthy discussion about covering the war on terrorism.

One paragraph suggests some questions a reporter assigned to cover military affairs during time of war should answer: Are you ready to participate in this war? Are you prepared, physically and mentally, to make the abrupt transition from peacetime reporter to war correspondent? Is your organization prepared to invest the time and money in enabling you and your colleagues to carry out vastly expensive wartime coverage?

The author suggests that some heavy reading should be done to review lessons the press has learned from other recent military operations. Because of the nature of the war against terrorism there will be times a good story must be held from publication. He gives some examples of when such decisions have been made by the press:

The author adds, "Don't expect a medal for going against your reporter's instinct to report what you have learned. The best reward you can get is to look at your hands later and see that there is no blood on them." Printer's ink may be tough to wash from hands, but the blood of others shed for a story never comes off.

Several chapters are dedicated to just plain military information to acquaint the reporter with the subject he or she will be covering. Of special interest to me was the section on "How to ... weed out phony POWs, fake heroes, and other wannabes." One of the examples used is that of Ed Daily, "a Korean War veteran who confessed to the Associated Press and numerous other news media organizations in 1999 that he had participated in a deliberate massacre of South Korean civilians at the village of No Gun Ri in 1950." Of course, it was later proven, after the AP received a Pulitzer Prize for the No Gun Ri story, that Daily was no place near that area in 1950.

Just a couple of weeks ago the New York Times reported that Daily has now been charged by the Department of Veterans Affairs for filing false claims. "Prosecutors said Edward Lee Daily of Clarkesville, Tenn., bilked the federal government of hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation and medical claims by falsely asserting that he had been wounded in North Korea and was a prisoner of war," reported the newspaper.

Any person, not only reporters, interested in both news and the military should read "Pen & Sword," published by Marion Street Press Inc. We know that the war on terrorism isn't going to end in the near future.