Lessons in Politically Correct Reporting from the U.S. Military

Technorati Tags: Guantanamo,

Karen Greenberg runs the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law. She is also a journalist and a regular contributor at TomDispatch.com. Not too long ago, Greenberg visited the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, where she discovered that there is a correct way and an incorrect way to write about Gitmo:

Guantanamo Is Not a Prison
11 Ways to Report on Gitmo without Upsetting the Pentagon
By Karen J. Greenberg

Several weeks ago, I took the infamous media tour of the facilities at Guantanamo. From the moment I arrived on a dilapidated Air Sunshine plane to the time I boarded it heading home, I had no doubt that I was on a foreign planet or, at the very least, visiting an impeccably constructed movie set. Along with two European colleagues, I was treated to two-days-plus of a military-tour schedule packed with site visits and interviews (none with actual prisoners) designed to "make transparent" the base, its facilities, and its manifold contributions to our country's national security.
[...]
In the course of my brief stay, thanks to my military handlers, I learned a great deal about Gitmo decorum, as the military would like us to practice it. My escorts told me how best to describe the goings-on at Guantanamo, regardless of what my own eyes and prior knowledge told me.

Here, in a nutshell, is what I picked up. Consider this a guide of sorts to what the officially sanctioned report on Guantanamo would look like, wrapped in the proper decorum and befitting the jewel-in-the-crown of American offshore prisons… or, to be Pentagon-accurate, "detention facilities."

Via Cursor.