The Blogger as Independent War Reporter?

War looks more and more inevitable now. The last one in Iraq was a disaster in terms of independent journalism, although the Bush administration probably seems it the opposite. Arguably the fact that the Pentagon had almost perfect control over the presses access to info in the Gulf War 1 was a major factor in the fact that it was so easy for Bush and Co to manufacture the Gulf War 2. How different is this one going to be?

There are few online attempts to provide an alternative information source for the Gulf War 2. Hope they do a better job then the mainstream press did a decade ago.

http://www.back-to-iraq.com/ is a pretty much unknown journalist, Christopher Allbritton, going at it alone. This is a real attempt to be an independent journalist using an online blog as the outlet.

http://www.kevinsites.net/ is the blog of CNN reporter Kevin Sites. Given that he gets paid by a big cable network his ability to speak his mind is a bit more truncated. Still this blog appears like he might have a "what I do on my own time is my own business' attitude. Hope that its true and he can provide a really candid view of the war.

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/ is the blog of Salam Pax an Iraqi living in Bagdad. No pretenses of being journalism here, but its never the less far more informative about what's actually happening in Iraq then anything I've ever read in the papers. Good stuff, hope it can stay up and Salam can get through this evermore inevitable seeming nightmare untouched.