Media Can Kiss Military Access Goodbye

Journalists are going to have a much tougher job covering the war in Afghanistan in the wake of Stanley McChrystal's Rolling Stone debacle, senior National Journal correspondent James Kitfield predicts today. "There will be no embeds in Afghanistan in higher headquarters for quite a while," he tells NPR. "The trust between the military and the media has just been shot out of the water."

Military/media relations have just started to thaw recently, after decades of mutual distrust built during the Vietnam War. Reporters have largely been pleasantly surprised by the access they've gotten in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now senior military officers are likely to think long and hard before talking to the press. And they'll probably conclude that they have little to gain, and much to lose, by doing so.