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Embedded Journalists

 
AnswerNote: Embedded Journalists
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During the War on Iraq, journalists found that they were unable to make their way into areas where fighting was going on, thus coming to an agreement with the military that the journalists would travel with specific units, reporting on their progress during the war. These embedded journalists were protected by the units with which they travelled, and were given a "front seat" to the activity in the war. They had unprecedented access to actual battles, soldiers and, often, the enemy, but at the same time were limited to information that the leaders of their unit were willing to share with them.

As soon as possible after the fall of Baghdad, many US and British journalists ended their embedding arrangements with the military, choosing to report independent of the protection of the military.

Last updated: January 05, 2009.

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Wikipedia: Embedded journalism
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An embedded civilian journalist taking photographs of US soldiers in Panama.

Embedded journalism refers to news reporters being attached to military units involved in armed conflicts. While the term could be applied to many historical interactions between journalists and military personnel, it first came to be used in the media coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The United States military responded to pressure from the country's news media who were disappointed by the level of access granted during the 1991 Gulf War and in the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

At the start of the war in March 2003, as many as 775 reporters and photographers were traveling as embedded journalists. [1] These reporters signed contracts with the military that limited what they were allowed to report on. [2] When asked why the military decided to embed journalists with the troops, Lt. Col. Rick Long of the U.S. Marine Corps replied, "Frankly, our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to attempt to dominate the information environment."[3]

Gina Cavallaro, a reporter for the Army Times, said, "They’re [the journalists] relying more on the military to get them where they want to go, and as a result, the military is getting smarter about getting its own story told."[4]

As an illustration of the control exerted over embedded reporters, the U.S. Coalition Forces Land Component Command in Kuwait pulled the credentials of two embedded journalists from the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia, reportedly for publishing a picture of a bullet-ridden Humvee parked in a Kuwaiti camp. [4]

Contents

Criticism

“ We were a propaganda arm of our governments. At the start the censors enforced that, but by the end we were our own censors. We were cheerleaders. ”

—Charles Lynch[5]

The practice has been criticized as being part of a propaganda campaign and an effort to keep reporters away from civilian populations and sympathetic to invading forces; for example by the documentary film War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.

Some critics felt that the level of oversight was too strict and that embedded journalists would make reports that were too sympathetic to the American side of the war, leading to use of the alternate term "inbedded journalist" or "inbeds". "Those correspondents who drive around in tanks and armored personnel carriers," said legendary journalist Gay Talese in an interview, "who are spoon-fed what the military gives them and they become mascots for the military, these journalists. I wouldn't have journalists embedded if I had any power!... There are stories you can do that aren't done. I've said that many times."[6]

Joint training for war correspondents started in November 2002 in advance of the March 2003 start of the war in Iraq.

See also

References

  1. ^ Reporters, commentators visit Berkeley to conduct in-depth postmortem of Iraq war coverage
  2. ^ Pros and Cons of Embedded Journalism
  3. ^ Postmortem: Iraq war media coverage dazzled but it also obscured
  4. ^ a b Embedded – Sourcewatch
  5. ^ Knightley, Phillip. "The First Casualty", 1975. p. 333
  6. ^ Interview with Gay Talese, David Shankbone, Wikinews, October 27, 2007.

External links


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