Last week, CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan blasted a Rolling Stone reporter whose report may have cost Gen. Stanley McChrystal his job as commander in Afghanistan. Jamie McIntyre, a former CNN reporter who covered the Pentagon for 16 years, slammed Logan's comments Sunday.
After Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings exposed inflammatory comments by McChrystal and his staff about the President Barack Obama and the civilian leadership, Logan suggested that it was the job of a reporter to cultivate the trust of sources by not reporting certain damaging remarks.
"Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has," she told CNN's Howard Kurtz.
In a blog posting, McIntyre took exception to Logan's comments. "In defending herself and her compatriots in the press corps, against charges they are too chummy with the military, Logan wounded them grievously with misaimed friendly fire. She unfortunately reinforced the worst stereotype of reporters who 'embed' with senior military officers but are actually 'in bed' with them," he wrote.
"The most damaging thing she said was when she made the comment disparaging Michael Hastings by referring to the fact that he hadn't served his country the way the military did," McIntyre told Kurtz Sunday.
"That comment fed this perception that we're more interested in protecting the members of the military than pursuing aggressive journalism and in that sense it was a very damaging comment to make," he said.
