Editor's Note Marshals Support for Embattled Embed in Rumsfeld Flap

By: E&P Staff In a front-page note to readers this morning, Tom Griscom, editor and publisher of the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press, quoted a local military spokesman and a top ethicist in defending his reporter Edward Lee Pitts, who prompted a U.S. soldier to put a challenging question to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on Wednesday.

He also quoted from an email from Pitts: ?It is amazing these guys are defending freedom but don't want free speech in their own country."

Griscom admitted that, in hindsight, ?information on how the question was framed should have been included? in the reporter's story about the controversial incident. But he added: ?Mr. Pitts used the tools available to him as a journalist to report on a story that has been and remains important to members of the 278th [National Guard unit] and those back at home.?

He quoted Sgt. Randy Harris, of the Tennessee Military Department, saying, ?Regardless of where the question came from, it is a legitimate concern. The soldier that asked the question was earnest in asking. I think he was very truthful in the way he asked the question.?

The question by Specialist Thomas Wilson, put to Rumsfeld at a town hall meeting in Kuwait, had to do with lack of enough armored vehicles in Iraq.

Griscom, who once served as director of communications in the Reagan White House, quoted an email from Pitts stating he believes ?lives are at stake with so many soldiers going across the border behind scrap metal.? Pitts added, ?It is amazing these guys are defending freedom but don't want free speech in their own country. I was impressed that [Rumsfeld] was willing to take the tough questions from the soldiers.?

Pitts had written major stories about this same issue recently for the paper.

Griscom also quoted Bob Steele, an ethicist with the Poynter Institute, who said, ?Lee Pitts used some enterprise in how he went about getting that question on the table. From an ethical standpoint, he certainly needed to be honest with the soldiers about what he was doing, that he wanted them to ask his question. My impression is that is what he did. I don't see any form of deceit in what he did.?

Publisher/editor Griscom added: ?While Mr. Pitts states that he discussed the armor question with the soldiers, Spc. Wilson chose to ask the question.?