Let us speak hypothetically.
Assume that we are engaged in a low level conflict in the country of Qari, and US troops are there to assist in the transition to democracy by killing terrorists and other undesirables. Along with the troops are a considerable number of American news media, there to cover the event.
One day, an ABC news crew happens to be covering a minor human interest story, and in the background, a well known terrorist is caught on camera entering an apartment building. The news crew doesn't realize this, nobody realizes it until some bright intelligence folks see the broadcast on television and quickly run the informaiton up the chain of command.
A night operation is laid on. The apartment building is besieged, innocents removed without mishap and several terrorists are killed, including the well known terrorist. The entire event is caught live on camera by the same crew from ABC, with the reporter, Peter Wallace, explaining how the terrorists were known to be in the vicinity.
The brother of the well known terrorist, a Achmed Al-Pusar (ibn Zayar) sees this on his own satellite TV from a safehouse in another city. He gathers together a group of terrorists and plan to kill the ABC news crew for filming his brother and providing tactical intelligence, even if it was, after all, accidental.
The plan is simple, and brutal. The terrorists will wait for the news crew to leave the safety of the hotel, and then a distraction will be provided by a car bomb. The news crew will immediately rush to film it, and will interview any bystanders, and some of those will be Al-Pusar's men. While Peter Wallace is interviewing a pedestrian, several terrorists will converge on him and shoot him, on camera, and the rest of the news crew, sparing only the cameraman.
The plan, unfortunately, is discovered by an operative of the Qari government who is sympathetic to the US military, and the plan is passed on to the US chain of command.
Should the military tell ABC what they have learned? Should Peter Wallace be told that he is a target of a terrorist operation?
«A HREF="http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/news_release.asp?NewsRelease=20040609.txt"»I'm just asking.«/A»
A Marine colonel asked the same question on that program Ethics in America: Under Orders, Under Fire. After Mike Wallace said that he was a journalist first and an American second, the colonel said that he was sickened by that answer, because if the same journalists who refused to help Americans -- at the risk of being biased -- were taken hostage, Marines might have to die to go rescue them. It's an awful double standard...
Indeed it is, which is why the news organizations should state up front: either they act as citizens or they will be treated like furniture. They can't have it both ways.