Reporter fed soldier question, or did he?

The Tennessean/Leon Alligood | December 10 2004

One day after Spc. Thomas Jerry Wilson was called a hero for asking a blunt question of the secretary of defense, questions surfaced yesterday about whether the soldier was coached by an embedded reporter.

Spc. Wilson took Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to task for the lack of armor for vehicles of the Tennessee-based 278th Regimental Combat Team, preparing to move into Iraq from Kuwait.

Yesterday, the Poynter Institute, a continuing education facility for journalists located in St. Petersburg, Fla., and the Drudge Report, a popular daily digest of political news, questioned whether reporter Edward Lee Pitts of the Chattanooga Times Free Press helped Wilson craft his question.

For the second day in a row, the specialist's name was fodder for news media around the world.

The publisher and executive editor of the Chattanooga newspaper, Tom Griscom, defended his reporter but said he wanted answers. Meanwhile, to cloud the waters even more, Wilson's girlfriend said the specialist told her he had ''brainstormed'' the questions — and never mentioned the reporter's involvement.

Both Web sites posted an e-mail from Pitts that was sent to another staffer at the Times Free Press. Pitts is embedded with the 278th, which includes 3,000 Tennessee National Guard members.

In the e-mail, Pitts said he was able to attend the Rumsfeld forum because his unit's convoy into Iraq had been delayed.

''Beforehand we worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor,'' the e-mail stated. The message does not specifically identify the individuals to whom he was referring.

The e-mail also said Pitts ''found the sergeant in charge of the microphone for the question and answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys.''

In the e-mail Pitts said he attended the forum with two soldiers of the 278th. One of them was Wilson, 31, of Nashville, whose question to Rumsfeld has since been seen over and over on television.

Pitts did not disclose his role in yesterday's Times Free Press. ''You absolutely have to spell that out,'' said Rem Rieder, editor of the American Journalism Review. ''Not doing so gives a really misleading picture of how this took place.''

Griscom called the story about the lack of armor ''a very important story, one that Lee has written about many times for our newspaper.'' Griscom said the 278th has been reassured ''time and time again they were going to have armor'' but that Lee's reporting had shown discrepancies in planning.

Griscom said he had not talked with his reporter because Pitts is in a period during which he is not allowed to communicate with the outside as the unit he's embedded with prepares to move north into Iraq.

''When I get the chance, I will talk to him. I want him to walk me through how it went. I want to have the benefit of talking to Lee personally. I need to hear for myself what transpired,'' Griscom said.

He indicated that there was some information in the e-mail that was not communicated to an editor that Pitts called a few days ago.

''I will ask about that,'' he said.

Griscom said it was a shame that the questions ''about the question'' had stalled a genuine discussion about Spc. Wilson's armor inquiry.

''We can critique all day how the question got asked, but we don't need to hide the issue. These are Tennesseans that we're talking about,'' Griscom said.

Meanwhile, Wilson's girlfriend, Marilyn Elam of Nashville, said her boyfriend never mentioned Pitts' involvement in the formation of his question.

However, Elam, who is spokeswoman for TennCare, said Wilson did call her Tuesday morning to ask advice about three questions he wanted to ask Rumsfeld.

''Jerry said he had brainstormed two of the questions and wanted to have three in his back pocket in case the opportunity came up,'' she said.

The two questions he had already written included the one about the lack of vehicle armor. The other question he had already composed concerned the length of deployments for National Guardsmen.

The third question, which Elam said she helped Wilson write, concerned the chance of a second deployment after the 278th returns next year.

''He only asked the one question. It was an honest question and one that I'm confident came from his experience,'' Elam said.

''Going forward, the question has now been asked, and we hope that it'll be used in a constructive way to keep him and the other soldiers safe. It appears the question is being taken seriously now, and that's a good thing.''

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