Media’s Role in Gulf War

It may be, as Robert Fisk says (“Marching Orders for the Media,” Commentary, Feb. 11), that the military has been too strict with the press, and that the press has been too compliant toward the military, but there is another side. A great many, if not most, reporters know little or nothing about military matters. Their interests lie elsewhere, as do most citizens’ during peacetime. Fisk, for example, mentions Air Force pilots who fly from the USS Saratoga, an aircraft carrier, when in fact only Navy or Marine pilots fly from ships. It’s not that big a deal, except that it’s indicative of a very large gap in the background of a war correspondent.

The generals are in the position of astronomers being interviewed by sportswriters or music critics. It’s not surprising that they won’t let them get near anything.

STEVE ROBERTS, Northridge