] A recent Washington Post article describing the killing
] of civilians by U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint outside the
] Iraqi town of Najaf proved that "embedded" journalists do
] have the ability to report on war in all its horror. But
] the rejection by some U.S. outlets of Post correspondent
] William Branigin's eyewitness account in favor of the
] Pentagon's sanitized version suggests that some
] journalists prefer not to report the harsh reality of
] war.
]
] The Pentagon version was the one first reported in U.S.
] media-- sometimes in terms that assumed that the official
] account was factual. "What happened there, the van with a
] number of individuals in it...approached the checkpoint,"
] reported MSNBC's Carl Rochelle (3/31/03). "They were told
] to stop by the members of the 3rd Infantry Division. They
] did not stop, warning shots were fired. Still they came
] on. They fired into the engine of the van. Still it came
] on, so they began opening fire on the van itself."

] The Post's account is significant because it suggests
] that, in fact, military procedures may not have been
] properly followed at the checkpoint. Several U.S. papers,
] including the New York Daily News, Boston Globe, Chicago
] Tribune, L.A. Times and San Francisco Chronicle, managed
] to include the discrepancy between the official Pentagon
] account and the Post's eyewitness description in their
] reports on the Najaf killings in their April 1 editions.
] The New York Times, however, did not, instead running a
] story that only presented the official version, under a
] headline that stated as a definite fact that adequate
] warning had been given before soldiers opened fire:
] "Failing to Heed Warning, 7 Iraqi Women and Children
] Die."