'What if you gave a war and the media didn't come?'

A really interesting article on what happens when a reporter dares to question the purpose of the daily news briefings, and ends up being challenged by Rush Limbaugh.

But I was not a war reporter. I did not have to observe war-time propriety, or cool. I was free to ask publicly (on international television, at that) the question everyone was asking of each other: "I mean no disrespect, but what is the value proposition of these briefings. Why are we here? Why should we stay? What's the value of what we're learning at this million dollar press centre?"

It was the question to sour the dinner party. It was also, because I used the words value proposition, a condescending and annoying question - a provocation.

Still I meant it literally: other than the pretence of a news conference - the news conference as backdrop and dateline - what did we get for having come all this way? What information could we get here that we could not have gotten in Washington or New York, what access to what essential person was being proffered? And why was everything so bloodless?