Media at War

The Iraq Crisis

Howard Tumber, Jerry Palmer

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781446239421
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Giornalismo

?Tumber and Palmer have provided an invaluable review of how journalists covered and reported the Iraq war and its aftermath. Their exhaustive research has resulted in an impressive analysis that makes this book essential reading? -

John Owen, Executive Producer of News Xchange and Visiting Professor of Journalism, City University

?This is a meticulously researched book that lays bare the way the war was reported. Decide for yourself whether the media ?embeds? - of whom I was one - were the world?s eyes and ears inside the military, or merely the puppets of the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence in London? - Ben Brown, BBC

?Media at War offers insights into the ways in which media at war inevitably become participants in both the military and the political wars? - Professor Michael Gurevitch, University of Maryland

International media coverage of the war in Iraq provoked public scrutiny as well debate amongst journalists themselves.

Media at War offers a critical overview of the coverage in the context of other preceding wars, including the first Gulf War, and opens up the debate on the key questions that emerged during the crisis. For example,

-What did we actually gain from ?live, on the spot? reporting?

-Were journalists adequately trained and protected?

-How compromised were the so-called ?embedded? journalists?

Tumber and Palmer?s analysis covers both the pre-war and post war phase, as well as public reaction to these events, and as such provides an invaluable framework for understanding how the media and news organisations operated during the Iraq Crisis.

PART I

The Media go to War

1

JOURNALISTS GO TO WAR

In the arrangements for media facilitation in Gulf War II, the most important innovation was the large-scale presence of journalists on the battlefield, embedded in military units.

The process of embedding journalists with the military was an organised strategy planned well in advance of the conflict. Speaking at a symposium held at the Brookings Institute in June 2003, Victoria Clarke, assistant secretary of defence for public affairs and chief spokesperson at the Pentagon, outlined some of the reasons for developing the embedded process:

It was actually an extraordinary evolution of a concept that already existed. If you’ve followed the Pentagon for some time, you know we’ve tried and Secretary Rumsfeld has tried since the very beginning to be very transparent in our business, to provide as much access as possible. If you put two or three of his predecessors together or my predecessors together, you would not have seen them do as many briefings, as many interviews, as many public events. They take communications very seriously. In previous conflicts, including Afghanistan, we made the best effort possible to provide access to the media. Iraq was different for a lot of reasons, and so there was an extraordinary evolution of what we were already doing, and it had to do with the fact that we knew if we went to war, we’d have a lot more people out there, a lot more soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. It had to do with the fact that we knew the more people saw the US military, the more they would understand the mission and how they were going about their jobs. I’ve used this story several times, but I knew with great certainty if we went to war, the Iraqi regime would be doing some terrible things and would be incredibly masterful with the lies and the deception. And I could stand up there at that podium and Secretary Rumsfeld could stand up there and say very truthfully the Iraqi regime is putting its soldiers in civilian clothing so they can ambush our soldiers. Some people would believe us and some people wouldn’t. But we had hundreds and hundreds of credible, independent journalists saying the Iraqi regime is putting their soldiers in civilian clothing. (Clarke, 2003d)

Another Pentagon spokesman, Lt Cmdr Jeff Davis, said the embedding programme would play a crucial role in the pending war to remove Hussein from power:

We recognize the value of having independent journalists say in an unbiased way what the truth is. It’s an important programme, and we stand by it. I think it is something that the American public will benefit from by having a true understanding of what is going on. (Cited in McClintock, 2003)

The process of organising the embedding of journalists with the military involved an ongoing dialogue between the US Department of Defense (DOD) and news organisation bureau chiefs. A number of briefings took place in the months leading up to the start of the war in March 2003.

At a Foreign Press Centre briefing held by the DOD at the end of January 2003, Bryan Whitman, deputy assistance secretary of defense for public affairs at the Pentagon, talked about the DOD’s plans for media support should war occur (or ‘something happens in the future’, as the DOD put it).

Speaking about the plans for how the Pentagon would support the media should anything come about, Whitman stated:

One of the principal means of coverage that the United States government is pursuing for any potential conflict with Iraq is this embedded nature, of having journalists that are alongside our forces in the field and on ships, at departure airfields, and for extended periods of time so they can develop the relationships, so that they can provide the very deep and rich coverage that you get by being with a unit.

The press pay for that, of course, because it is very deep, rich coverage, but it’s not very broad . . . So if you’re with a rifle company, you may get some very good reporting of what the unit is doing, but you may not have good situational awareness of what’s happening to your right, to your left, behind you – that type of thing.

. . . there’s a need for all the types of coverage that are going to be available out there . . . we are going to try to use embeds to the maximum extent possible. We’re doing it because that’s what news organizations tell us they want to do . . . They want their reporters to be able to cover any potential conflicts on the front line.

. . . We think that there are a lot of benefits to getting reporters out there with our units. Besides facilitating the type of access that they want to, we know that any time a reporter can spend an extended period of time with a particular unit, he or she gets to understand what that unit’s mission is about; they can report more accurately on their activities . . . given our potential adversary and his propensity to use disinformation, this will allow for objective reporting from the field on what the actual situation is.

So there’s a lot of good reasons to embed. It’s a challenge to the Defense Department . . . It’s developing not only confidence in reporters, and their abilities to go out there and spend with the unit on the ground for extended period of times, but also instilling in commanders the confidence that reporters are going to be able to be out there and not compromise the operations that they’re involved in or jeopardize the personnel that are conducting those operations. (Whitman, 2003a)

The organisation of the embedded process was based on a plan of allocating places to news organisations, not individual reporters. This made it difficult for freelancers to gain accreditation unless contracted to a news organisation. It also enabled the DOD to ‘control’ the process more easily through possible sanctions on news organisation for ‘misbehaviour’ on the part of their correspondents.

As Whitman commented:

We looked at television, radio, print, news wires, still photography, and we said it would be to our benefit, to the value of the American people and our international audience out there, if we had all forms of medium.

. . . we made a key decision that we were going to deal with news organizations and not individual reporters . . . And we’re doing that for a couple of reasons. One is that we believe that there is nobody that’s in a better position to determine how they want to cover any potential conflict and what the strengths and weaknesses are of their individual reporters than the bureau chiefs that assign reporters to their assignment. We made that decision . . . to allocate embed opportunities to news organizations, and that news organizations be partners with us in determining, then, who would go on that type of embed. (Whitman, 2003a)

Outlining the process of control, Whitman added:

We view an embed as an opportunity to stay with a unit for an extended period of time. So we’re not talking about a couple-day jaunt out to the field and returning back to a media centre somewhere. We’re talking about a long-term commitment on the part of the news organization as well as the reporter to be able to go out with the unit and stay with it for weeks, months, however long it might be out there. (Whitman, 2003a)

But with the caveat:

. . . the reporter is not going to be held hostage. If a reporter wants to leave a unit after a certain amount of time, they are certainly going to be welcome to do that. And to the extent that we can get them back to a place where they can obtain civilian commercial transportation out of the theatre, we will do that. (Whitman, 2003a)

At a later DOD briefing held at the end of February 2003, this point was reiterated by Whitman. In response to a hypothetical ‘what if my reporter goes off and does independent reporting from his unit?’, Whitman described the procedure:

First of all he won’t be permitted to do that. An embed is precisely an embed. You stay with that unit and you stay with that unit for as long as you want to stay with that unit. If you want to leave that unit the military commanders out there have been instructed to provide you with the means to get back to the first point of disembarkation or the first point in which you can get commercial transportation to get you out of the theatre. Or back to one of the media centres where your reporter, you may assign your reporter to cover from there or you may be sending them there because you want to try to get another embed opportunity somewhere else.

Again, it’s a very hypothetical situation but I would disabuse anybody of the idea that you can go out in embed status and then when you get tired just do some independent coverage out there and then perhaps link up with another unit or accidentally even run into another unit. You would in all likelihood either be, like I said, treated just like another civilian found on the battlefield, or evacuated back to the first point in which you could get commercially available transportation out of the theatre or to one of our media centres. (Whitman, 2003b)

The journalists embedded with the troops were given special rules for how they could operate. The guidance, policies and procedures on embedding news media during possible future operations and deployments were detailed in a document released in February 2003 (see US Department of Defense, 2003).

Policy was laid out explicitly in the document:

2.a. The Department of Defense (DOD) policy on media coverage of future military operations is that media will have long-term, minimally restrictive access to US air, ground and naval forces through embedding. Media coverage of any future operation will, to a large extent, shape public perception of the national security environment now and in the years ahead. This holds true for the US public; the public in allied countries whose opinion can affect the durability of our coalition; and publics in countries where we conduct operations, whose perceptions of us can affect the cost and duration of our involvement. Our ultimate strategic success in bringing peace and security to this region will come in our long-term commitment to supporting our democratic ideals. We need to tell the factual story – good or bad – before others seed the media with disinformation and distortions, as they most certainly will continue to do. Our people in the field need to tell our story – only commanders can ensure the media get to the story alongside the troops. We must organize for and facilitate access of national and international media to our forces, including those forces engaged in ground operations, with the goal of doing so right from the start. To accomplish this, we will embed media with our units. These embedded media will live, work and travel as part of the units with which they are embedded to facilitate maximum, in-depth coverage of US forces in combat and related operations. Commanders and public affairs officers must work together to balance the need for media access with the need for operational security. (US Department of Defense, 2003)

Journalists and news organisations were required to sign documents¹ complying with the rules set out at the beginning about what they could or could not report, for example, no details of future operations, no private satellite telephones or cell phones, no travelling in their own vehicles whilst in an embedded status, no photography showing level of security or an enemy prisoner of war or detainee’s face, nametag or other identifying feature.² Reporters also had to agree to honour news embargos that could be imposed to protect operational security.

After meeting journalists who were due to embed with their units, Major General Buford Blount III, commander of the US army’s 3rd Infantry Division, said:

This is going to be new for us and I think new for you too. The embedding process has got top priority of the army to make it work. The embedding process is an attempt to get reporters to tell the army story more actively by allowing them to share the experience and rank of past soldiers in the field . . . you are not happy with coverage in the past and we were not happy either. Over the years, I guess stemming from Vietnam, there has been a gradual mistrust that had developed between the media and the army and we are trying to stamp that out. We have got a younger generation of officers who don’t have the stigma with them and so we are going to try to embed and open up and we are going to make it work you know, we’ll have some bumps but we will work through it. (Cited in Synovitz, 2003)

According to Michael Getler, the ombudsman for the Washington Post, the long-term strategy of having so many journalists embedded with the troops had a further result.

The embedding concept has meant that hundreds of reporters have already spent weeks and may wind up spending months with military units. This means that many news organizations will now have a cadre of journalists who have some real knowledge and understanding of the military. Since the draft ended in 1973, the number of reporters who cover the military and have served in it has diminished substantially. (Getler, 2003)

The US Department of Defense did not entirely trust the embedded journalists not to reveal tactical military ploys, particularly on board ship. As a precaution, they introduced ‘arbitrary and capricious’ reporting windows. Rear Admiral Steve Pietropaoli, US navy chief of information, outlined the process:

The chal...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: The Media go to War
• Part II: Media Coverage
• Part III: The Media Still at War
• Postscript: the publicatin of the Hutton Report
• References
• Index