Pentagon Journalism
Frank Gaffney points out what I suspected from the start. The MSM (put on your surprised face now) didn't quite get what the Pentagon was doing.
[I]t is worth noting that the monies secretly paid to Iraqi journalists courageous enough in the face of terrorist death threats to bring factual information to their countrymen are not bribes. These payments make it possible for the journalists to provide security and death benefits for their families in the event they are killed — something none of their foreign colleagues reporting in-country would dream of doing without.