STUPID JOURNALIST TRICKS: A lot of people are upset about this story, misleadingly headlined PENTAGON THREATENS TO KILL INDEPENDENT REPORTERS IN IRAQ.

What the story is really about, though, is the Pentagon warning people who operate satellite uplinks in Iraq that they might be targeted during an attack.

Well, yeah. What makes these people think that they’re entitled to immunity from what’s going on around them in a battle zone? To an anti-radiation missile, a journalist’s satellite uplink looks just like a military communications facility. Saying that the Pentagon is “threatening to kill independent journalists” who insist on operating one during a war is like saying the Pentagon is “threatening to kill” people by warning them that if they drive around in tanks, wearing Iraqi uniforms, they might be shot at during an attack. Duh.

My question is, do people who don’t know the difference, or who know it and deliberately obscure it, deserve to be called “journalists” at all? Even if they work for the BBC?

And my answer is “no.”