I know I’m late linking to this, but read Michael Yon’s “Gates of Fire” as soon as you can.

Michael is providing the kind of raw, personal accounts that go so far beyond anything you’ll read in the mainstream press (with the possible exception of NY Times reporter Dexter Filkins’ Fallujah coverage). It’s especially interesting to note that on the same day Yon filed this dispatch, the AP released a FAQ about how it covers the Iraq war. This move by the AP is in response, you might recall, to concern from the editors of its member papers that the AP needed to do a better job of putting the daily violence into a more meaningful context.

It’s nice that the AP is making more of an effort to explain how it is covering the war, but the fact is that bloggers like Yon, milbloggers and other journalists like the late Steven Vincent are essential supplements to the mainstream media’s coverage of the conflict. These guys should be in the nation’s newspapers right alongside the latest AP wire story.