Blogger and journalist Kevin Sites is back in Iraq, this time on assignment with MSNBC. He's also re-starting the kevinsites.net blog. Snip from his first post, this time around:
The blog is reopen for business. It has been seven months since this site went silent. Time for everyone to get back to work. To all of you who have made this place so interesting with your informed and intelligent discussions, I thank you. For all who have been so kind as to inquire about my welfare—I also thank you and apologize for not being able to respond. When CNN politely (I mean this sincerely) asked me to stop blogging I felt it was my obligation to do so immediately and completely. CNN was signing my checks at the time and sent me to Iraq. Although I felt the blog was a separate and independent journalistic enterprise, they did not. Period. We move on.
Now I am freelancing again, but currently on-assignment in Iraq with MSNBC. I had been a long time staff member with NBC News and feel comfortable back with my old friends. MSNBC has also agreed to allow me to continue with my PERSONAL and may I stress, NON-AFFILIATED weblog. However, there are a few understandable stipulations which I want to relate to you: 1) I'm here because NBC News has hired me to be here, therefore the observations and experiences in Iraq that I relate to you this blog would probably not happen without them. 2) They have the right of first refusal on anything that I write that relates to this assignment. That means I run it by them and if they want it they will publish it on MSNBC.COM. It will be republished here. 3) If it's something they're not interested in or not directly related to an assignment they've paid me to do—it can appear here first. I think that's fair and bypasses any of the editorial oversight and ownership issues that we encountered in the first run of kevinsites.net.
That being said, I look forward to a renewed dialogue on the very serious as well as the inane. We hear so much about the "synergy" of media companies with the so-called vertical integration of different communication businesses, well here's the chance for individual "synergy" to impact media coverage. I'd like to know what you see as the shortcomings of media coverage in Iraq and elsewhere. What aren't you getting? What are you getting too much of? I welcome your well-conceived story ideas, relevant information and observations or valuable sources that may contribute to better journalism and a more informed public.
