Posted on 12/10/2004 9:32:35 AM PST by Pikamax
Fort Carson drops its ban on coverage by The Post
By Eileen Kelley Special to The Denver Post
Fort Carson - U.S. Army officials dropped their restrictions on Denver Post reporters Thursday.
"For any newsworthy events in the future, The Denver Post will be included as well as other news media outlets in our coverage area," said Lt. Col. David Johnson, chief of public affairs at Fort Carson. "I think that relationships are very important."
Earlier this week the Army dropped The Post from its e-mail list and refused to allow one of the paper's reporters to attend a military deployment.
The restriction followed Fort Carson's objections to a story detailing complaints about the Army's "medical hold" program for injured and ill soldiers on active duty.
Though a representative of Fort Carson was quoted in the story, as were other Army officials, Johnson and others at the base felt they were not given a fair chance to respond to the soldiers' complaints.
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Johnson and Denver Post Editor Greg Moore spoke on the phone Thursday about the restrictions, and Johnson agreed to the change.
"This was never about impeding the First Amendment. This was about us (not) being able to tell our side of the story," Johnson said.
Moore said he will meet with Fort Carson officials next week to discuss the ban, the medical hold story and other coverage issues.
"We are pleased that the ill-advised ban on The Post is no longer," Moore said. "We continue to believe our story fairly and accurately addressed a situation that has attracted the Army's attention about the quality of medical treatment for its soldiers.
"I do not expect Fort Carson officials to always agree with what we write, but this kind of retaliation was uncalled for, and I hope we won't have flare-ups like this in the future."
I wish Fort Carson would've stuck to their guns and kept the ban on the Denver Compost. Liberal rag.
As if, in their minds, any kind of retaliation is called for. All's fair in love and war, Mr. Editor...and when you are the only news outlet, you owe it to both your readership and your story subjects to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
By not allowing Ft. Carson to tell their side of the story, you've abrogated your responsibility to the public, and protestations otherwise are falling on deaf ears...I hope.
It's an unequal war, even though Fort Carson has all the weapons.
A liberal newspaper can lie its head off and pay no penalty. But a base commander will be held accountable for what he says and does. His superiors expect him to have good relations with the surrounding community and to avoid bad publicity.
Since he's not allowed to send a platoon of troops to take over the newspaper, there's very little he can do to fight back against their dishonest and unprofessional attacks. If he keeps them out, they will write negative articles about his command. If he lets them in, they will write negative articles about his command. Such is life.
Who gets the Denver Post?
Been here 30 years & I never have.
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