Send in the talk show hosts.
WLW-AM's Mike McConnell will broadcast from Iraq next week, during the Pentagon's first war-zone tour for talk-radio hosts.
Seven radio personalities - plus a reporter and a classic-rock DJ - will be escorted through the country.
Although the military has led "regional media" trips to war zones since Vietnam, this is the first for talk-radio hosts, says Navy Capt. Roxie Merritt, Defense Department press operations director.
"I'm interested in checking it all out myself, and seeing the devastation up close," says McConnell, who has supported the war and reconstruction.
McConnell, the 9 a.m.-noon weekday host, will broadcast live - when possible - by satellite phone, a briefcase-size device.
One media professor called the trip a propaganda junket.
"Given that the vast majority of talk-show hosts are conservative in tone and belief ... this seems to be a propaganda move, looking for positive comments on 'our boys' over there," says Chris Sterling, a media and public affairs professor at George Washington University.
Asked if he thought the military is manipulating him, McConnell says: "You keep your eyes open. I have a brain."
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