An article in Rolling Stone magazine last week titled "The Runaway General" sent shock waves through Washington that led President Barack Obama to fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal – the commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
But was the article fair?
The story, written by freelance reporter Michael Hastings, portrays McChrystal and his staff – who refer to themselves as "Team America" – as indignant critics of Obama and high-ranking officials in his administration.
Hastings reported one of McChrystal's aides called National Security Adviser Jim Jones a "clown."
In addition, McChrystal himself referred to Special Representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke as a "wounded animal."
At one point in the article, Hastings recalls how most of "Team America" got "s---faced" at a Parisian bar while in France with McChrystal to sell his new counterinsurgency strategy to our NATO allies.
Hastings reported that McChrystal, in addition to poor behavior and swipes at civilian officials, was involved in a number of controversies before he took over the reigns in Afghanistan last summer – controversies that, because of a lack of media scrutiny, did little to tarnish his reputation.
In 2004, McChrystal signed off on a falsified recommendation for a Silver Star for Cpl. Pat Tillman – the former NFL star turned Army Ranger – that suggested that Tillman had been killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan.
It was later learned that Tillman was actually killed accidentally by friendly fire.
McChrystal was also implicated in a scandal involving detainee abuse and torture at Camp Nama in Iraq in 2006.
The indignation of McChrystal and his staff outlined in the Hastings article, including the aforementioned controversies, raises a number of questions about current media coverage of military brass and other high-ranking officials in Washington.
It is difficult to believe that McChrystal, despite his past failings (which were largely ignored by the media), would say, and allow his staff to say, the outrageous things included in the Rolling Stone article.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that McChrystal and members of his staff never truly believed that everything they said would be written down and put in print – they assumed no ill would come of their spouting at the mouth and acting like buffoons in front of a reporter.
As David Morris points out in the Virginia Quarterly Review, this was likely due to the fact that many correspondents, especially those in Washington and those covering wars, are loathe to burn sources by writing derogatory things about them.
The bridge-burning effect is the underlying fear that seems often to impel journalists not to print unflattering information about their sources: to print derogatory information is to cut off access to a source.
Because of this sentiment, many journalists are content to toe the line, to print only that information that allows them to maintain access to the power teat, which invariably tends only to provide enough information to keep them and the public quiet.
If such deep deference is to persist amongst war correspondents and Beltway journalists, they should not bother reporting anything at all.
The public can get all the schtick and spin they need from watching high-ranking officials read prepared statements on C-SPAN.
In certain (if not most) cases, telling the truth must take precedence over keeping one's seat at the table, so to speak – truth-telling is much more important than protecting one's access to the salons of power in Washington or elsewhere.
Such access is meaningless if journalists do not, at least occasionally, ask the tough questions and print information that ruffles the feathers of their high-powered sources.
In the case of McChrystal and "Team America," there are several major issues at stake – bear in mind that we are talking about the group of individuals charged with running all U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.
Hastings' article is relevant because of what it reveals – a dysfunctional political-military operation in Afghanistan in which senior military leaders and top diplomatic officials are as much at war with each other as with al-Qaida.
The comments and actions of McChrystal and his staff do not amount to mere "kvetching," as David Brooks has suggested in the New York Times.
We are not talking about innocent banter between a boss and his employees in an office somewhere in Ohio.
Hastings' coverage of McChrystal and "Team America" was fair and necessary.
There is too much at stake in the war in Afghanistan, which recently surpassed Vietnam as the longest military conflict in U.S. history, for journalists to give deference to senior military leaders and top diplomatic officials.