exchange with NYT journalist on bombings, casualties, and role of journalist.

steve philion philion at hawaii.edu
Tue Feb 4 14:38:48 PST 2003


----- Original Message ----- From: "steve philion" <philion at hawaii.edu> To: "Eric Schmitt" <erschm at nytimes.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 2:08 PM Subject: Re: bombardment to come


> Dear Mr. Schmitt,
>
> Thank you for your timely response. You state that, "the military's air
campaign is designed to minimize civilian casualties, but it can't prevent them altogether".
>
> Mr. Schmitt, you are a journalist. Such a sentence coming from Ari
Fleischer is entirely consistent with his job description. How in the world can you state with a straight face that you honestly believe that a plan to drop
> more cruise missiles in one day than were dropped on Iraq during Gulf War
1 is designed to "minimize casualties"? That a journalist can state such propaganda, in a free democratic country, is mind boggling.
>

Thank you again for your letter in response to my initial note.
>
> Stephen Philion
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eric Schmitt" <erschm at nytimes.com>
> To: "steve philion" <philion at hawaii.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 1:36 PM
> Subject: re: bombardment to come
>
>
> >
> > mr. philion,
> >
> > it's very hard for anyone -- the military or independent analysts -- to
> > predict how many civilian casualties there might be in a war with
> > iraq. the military's air campaign is designed to minimize civilian
> > casualties, but it can't prevent them altogether. this is an issue
we've
> > raised in just about every major war-planning story we've written, in
part
> > because the success of the initial war will be measured in large part in
> > how well the aftermath is managed.
> >
> > regards,
> > eric schmitt
> >
> >
> > At 08:55 PM 2/1/2003 -0600, you wrote:
> > >Dear Mr. Schmitt,
> > >I'm curious how many civilians are estimated to be killed in this
massive
> > >bombardment to come? Is it in the media's interest to not cover this
> issue
> > >because the government has threatened to shut down your newspaper if
you
> > >do (which of course is highly unlikely) or is this just another example
> of
> > >pro-war self-censorship?
> > >
> > >Stephen Philion
> > >MPLS, MN
> >
> >
>



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