Pen & Sword
 Ed Offley
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2001 Marion Street Press
  ISBN: 0966517644
Amazon's price is: $24.95

A Journalist's Guide to Covering the Military.

As more & more of our news, since 9/11, has been about the War on Terrorism; as our politicians have raised the idea of the Draft again -- I know I need more information on how to understand our journalists' reporting, when they make mistakes, or misidentify a rank, or the designation of a unit, & more about the make-up & the language of today's military.

Ed Offley takes us through the modern history of military reporting, & tells some good stories to boot! Since the press pools of the Gulf War, where journalists were herded together & fed inane military doublespeak, relations between the military & the media have done an about-face, so that today there are “embedded” media, where journalists travel with units, & remain with them for weeks at a time.

Covering defense & the military is much more than a regular reporter's beat. Stories written by military reporters can range from an interview with a local recruit heading off to boot camp, to covering a war in a foreign land. From sifting through documents at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri to covering a serviceman's death, to reporting on an aircraft crash, to actually going to the front lines, such as they are in today's wars. In between are thousands of stories about local & regional military installations, exercises & operations, & businesses that support the military, & the thousands of people involved. There are also stories exposing phoney war heroes.

Pen & Sword helps not only reporters thinking of taking up the military beat, it also helps us civilians to understand the basics of the military; how a military beat is organized; what the protocol is for interviewing military personnel; how reporters go into the field, how to deal with the Pentagon, how to cover the defense industry, & when to keep secrets.

Pen & Sword is for everyone who wants to know how our military works. A very useful primer, easily understood, simply presented & really, a good read!

Certainly a book for every student interested in the military, reporting it & giving our warriors their due.

Ed Offley has been a reporter & editorial writer since 1972, specializing in defense & military subjects. He was a military reporter at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer where he covered military operations in the Pacific Northwest. He has since served as editor in chief of The Stars and Stripes, editor of DefenseWatch newsletter, & editor at STRATFOR.com a strategic issues forecasting firm. He was a member of the media combat pool during the Gulf War, & has covered military operations & exercises in the former Soviet Union, Somalia, Panama, South Korea & 14 other foreign countries. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1996.
(01/12/03)

Rebecca