When war bloggers attack

The Fighting 101st Keyboardists are at it again, accusing the AP photographer of staging the execution of election workers in Baghdad the other day.

How else, they ask, could a combat photographer actually capture a scene of violence? In a war zone? I mean, they sit around in their pajamas all day, typing furiously, and nothing ever happens except when mom calls upstairs to say their lunch is ready.

No, it had to be the left wing agenda of the Associated Press. Although the logic is somewhat unclear (Discredit election workers? For dying?). There can be no other explanation for the increasingly desperate bloggerum belli. As Mark Follman writes,

This is hardly the first time that pundits on the political right have sought to portray a left-wing media insurgency bent on capturing grim images in U.S.-occupied Iraq in order to undermine the Bush administration. Last April, the editors of the New York Post blared accusations of the AP cutting a deal with Fallujah's mutilators and helping to maximize the carnage of the four American military contractors murdered there.

Reporting from the most perilous sectors of a war zone is a complicated business, both in terms of access and safety. The kind of flimsy commentary-with-an-agenda bouncing around the conservative blogosphere right now regarding an AP insurgency against the war effort is not only a disservice to the public but a dishonor to the many journalists who have been injured or killed carrying out their dangerous mission in Iraq.

Fight on, brave members of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists. Your nation needs you. To shut up.