How the Media Covers the Military with Todd South

MOPs & MOEs

We have ongoing conversations here about fitness in the military, disability policies, changes to testing, and so much more. Because many of these are hot topics, they often attract media coverage, which can have both positive and negative consequences. To help shed some light on the complex relationship between the media and the military, especially with regard to health and fitness issues, we brought in an expert for this episode.

Todd South is Editor-at-large for Military Times, which publishes Air Force Times, Army Times, Marine Corps Times, and Navy Times. Todd has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd served as a Marine in the Iraq War, and some of his favorite topics include marksmanship and fitness.

As a special bonus, stay tuned until the end of the episode to get some pro tips on how to put together Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from someone who has extensive experience doing them.

Todd makes several references throughout the episode to places you can go to learn more about journalism, here are the links if you want to go check them out:

The Braindead Megaphone: the titular essay from this collection by George Saunders presages some of the modern social media problems with which we’re all now grappling.

All I know is What I Read in the Papers (explains what the public gets wrong about reporters and how they do their work in a very funny way). This essay is available either as a Kindle single or in the essay collection titled “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.”

The News: A User's Manual which Todd describes as being how news should be viewed, read and frankly, produced. Many of the sentiments expressed had rattle around his head starting with his first bylines in 2004. He wishes all creators and consumers of news media would read it.

Intimate Journalism: The Art and Craft of Reporting Everyday Life, which he describes as simply a classic that should be studied more by journalists at every level.