A couple of my old school posts were about the failure of the press to be, well, team players.   Being a team player here means recognizing that as much as you'd like to give yourself the guiltless freedom of a detached, impartial observer, sometimes you are right in the thick of it and have to take on some responsiblity as well.   Now it's sticky to have to sort out when you get to play your own little solo and when you have to play for the team.  But alas, the War on Terror is unfortunately one of those sticky situations.

Given how this issue was one of the things that drove me to blog some 3 years ago, it's nice to note that the press does occasionally recognize that their reportage goes far beyond simple coverage and into the domain of direct influence.  At least when another journalist is involved -

 Editor & Publisher reports today on the successful efforts made by the Christian Science Monitor to impose a weekend-long "news blackout" on coverage of the abduction of its Baghdad stringer, Jill Carroll. Unknown gunmen took Carroll and murdered her translator, Allan Enwiyah, on Saturday morning in Baghdad.

Carroll's name didn't appear in the print editions of the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, or the New York Times, until today, Tuesday, Jan. 10. The Associated Press story naming her moved at 11:10 p.m., Monday, Jan. 9, according to Nexis.

"I was surprised and very heartened that people were so willing to help us," Monitor Managing Editor Marshall Ingwerson tells E&P.

So when it was one of their own, they banded together, identified what the "good" outcome should be, and recognized when their actions helped create or steer away from that outcome.   If only they were so quick to recognize that Coalition & American soldiers are on their team as well. 

Of course, moderating reportage of the latest car bomb in favor of 3 succesful elections or less Lynndie England in favor of Paul Smith might be construed as too pro-Bush.  And we can't have that.