I think in this case the media is acting entitled to something it’s not entitled to. While I agree that there could be constitutional issues with censoring material that comes back from wars, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the US army saying, “You can come, but we don’t have to protect you.” Having reporters embedded with soldiers in the field, I would imagine as clearly I’m not an expert on this, would be a big annoyance to soldiers fighting. You have to waste space on transports to take them to and from the front, waste uniforms on them, waste food on them. You have to worry about them getting in the way.
Now, if they were defending a constitutional right, then I would agree that it’s an annoyance that the army needs to learn how to cope with. However, when the framers of the constitution framed the constitution, they didn’t add any stipulations about the people’s right to know exactly what happens on the field of battle that America’s armed forces fight in. So I don’t think America should be allowed to stop reporters from finding their own way to get to the field of battle and risking their lives to get some footage. I just don’t think the army should have to have any obligation to go out of their way to keep them alive.
Cops don’t have to be bothered by reporters following them around while they're on duty and having to worry about protecting them on sting operations; I don’t our armed forces should have to either.
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