A U.S. Army battalion commander and his Command Sergeant Major were relieved of duty the other day in Afghanistan. For Canadian readers, this news is notable because a) the Lieutenant Colonel in question was working in Arghandab and reported to the Canadian Task Force commander, and b) because as far as I can tell, not a single Canadian journalist reported on it.
BruceR at Flit, back from a tour in Kandahar himself, asks the pointed, but obvious question:

…given that this is the most significant thing to happen at KAF in nearly a month, and undoubtedly a prime gossip item in every coffee line there, I’m kinda surprised none of our Canadian pool reporters there had picked up on it yet, and left it to a guy at the Fayetteville Observer back home to get the scoop. Kinda reminds me of when Jim Day, working for the tiny Pembroke Ontario daily (also called the Observer) heard about the Somalia allegations first. Desk editors here in Canada might want to get someone to check the huts to see if their reporters are under the weather. If they are conscious, questions they might want to forcefeed them would include: was Canadian task force commander BGen Menard consulted on the Americans’ decision to fire his immediate subordinate? Did he request it himself? etc. (I’m sure things were at sixes and sevens after the tragic loss of reporter Michelle Lang to an IED four weeks ago, Haiti, etc., but surely some arrangements have been made to keep press coverage in Afghanistan going. This strongly suggests they’re not working.)

I’ve been at KAF and Camp Nathan Smith, and I’ve sat where the journalists hang out and file stories. I know they face some challenges navigating officialdom and digging down to the real ground-level stories in Kandahar. Perhaps all of them are out on the ground, patrolling with the Battle Group or with the CIMIC guys from the KPRT or at a FOB. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t catch this story, and were scooped by that media giant, the Fayetteville Observer.
But I suspect not. In my experience, the single biggest obstacle for many of them is that they haven’t figured out what they’re covering or how to cover it. By that I mean they don’t know what’s important in a counterinsurgency and/or nation building mission, and what’s a red herring. So we get a lot of news stories that tell us sweet f-all about what’s really going on. And to compound that problem, they don’t know where to go to get their information. They have little familiarity with military culture, and so don’t know how to build trust with the troops.
The funny thing is, the troops understand the value of talking to the press and make efforts to bridge the gap at every point they can. It’s just not enough in every case.
Either way, as BruceR pointed out, the Canadian media in Kandahar seem to have broken down en masse today, to the detriment of the Canadian public’s understanding. Time for the MSM to pick up their game.