ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATIONS

ΜA in DIGITAL MEDIA, COMMUNICATION & JOURNALISM

Master of Arts Dissertation

USA Embedded Journalism Vs Russian Military Journalism. Two sides of the same coin… or not?

Elias Nikezis

Supervising Professor Nikolaos Panagiotou

Thessaloniki 2016 ii Abstract As the nature of war itself has significantly changed since the end of World War II (WWII), evolving from an industrial to an information one, changes on the relationship between military and media have also occurred, in order to adapt to the new challenging information environment. Media gained a protagonist role in that new form of war and their representatives face today more danger than ever, making almost impossible for a foreign reporter to work as independent in a conflict zone. Both United States of America (USA) and Russian experts voice worries about the extreme danger that today’s war correspondents have to deal with. The practice of embedded journalism, as a mean of controlling dissemination of information, has primary appeared during the Granada invasion, developed by the British in the Falkland Islands and perfected by the US after the end of the first Gulf war. The practice of embedded has been introduced by the US military as an answer to journalists demand on getting first hand information and eyewitness frontline heat, especially after the complains about the coverage of the Gulf war, but it has been later adapted also by the Russian military, customised to best fit its needs. In both cases it has been proven to provide positive coverage of the conflict, in favour of the military, while at the same time it provided descent coverage of the conflict. Comparing the USA and Russian military approaches to the media and war reporting they both have developed similar successful media policies, significantly based on regulating their relationship with war correspondents, customised to best fit their objectives and best target their audiences, to ensure gaining and maintaining population support.

Key Words: Embedded journalism, dissemination of information, military journalism, media policy

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………….………ii TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………..……………….….iii ABREVIATIONS………………………………………………………………………………….....v INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………..……………….….1 1 Chapter one: The USA approach………………………………….…………..…….…..……4 1.1 From Patriotic to Embedded Journalism…………………………….…..….………..4 1.2 World War II: War correspondence coming to age….……………….…..………….4 1.2.1 Bill Mauldin and Ernie Pyle………….………………………………………5 1.2.2 Stars and Stripes Newspaper…………………………………………………6 1.2.3 The Writing 69th……………………………………………….…..………...6 1.2.4 The Murrow Boys……………………………………………….……………7 1.3 Vietnam: A lesson learned……………………………………………………………7 1.4 The Granada invasion: Censorship Heyday……….…………………..……………..8 1.5 Gulf War: The CNN Effect……………………...……………………….…………..9 1.6 Iraq: War in the information era……………………………………….……………10 1.7 Moving forward…………………………………..…………………………………12 2 Chapter two: The USSR - Russia Approach…………………………………………..……13 2.1 Military and War Journalism from USSR to Post-Soviet Russia Reform………..…13 2.2 Crimea: The generation of the new Russian identity…………………………….…13 2.3 WWII - Reporting the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945……………………....…….14 2.3.1 Vasily Grossman………………..……………………………………..……14 2.3.2 Krasnaia Zvezda (Red Star)…………………………………………………15 2.4 Afghanistan: Military Journalists Only……………………………………………..15 2.5 Glasnost: Impact on Soviet Union’s military journalism………………….………..17 2.6 Chechnya: Two wars, one media policy, a Waterloo and a Great Success…..……..18 3 Chapter three: War Correspondents and dangers in the war zone…………….…………….23 3.1 Not a military trick………………………………………………………………….23 3.2 Reporting War: A dangerous Job…………………...………………………………23 3.3 New working conditions, new journalism and an unclear legal status…….…….….23 3.4 The challenge for a today’s war reporter……………………………………………24 3.5 Providing proper training……………………………….…….…………………….25 3.6 The international recognition emblem………………………………………………26 3.7 Losing the civilian status……………………………………………………………26 3.8 The SAFE initiative…………………………………………………………………27 iv 3.9 The revised US Law of War Manual………………………………………………..27 3.9.1 Losing the civilian status II…………………………………………………28 4. Chapter Four: Embedded Vs Independent’s Coverage…………………….……………….30 4.1 War Correspondent’s dilemmas…………………………………….…………..…..30 4.2 Embedded Journalism………………………………………..………….………….32 4.3 Being embedded with US Military…………………………………..……………...32 4.3.1 Iraq coverage comparative framing analysis………………….…………….33 4.3.2 The cause of differences……………………………………….……………34 4.3.3 Practicing self censorship……………………………………….…………..35 4.4 Reporting the 2nd Chechnya War…………………………………………...………….36 4.4.1 Embedded with Russian military……………………………….……….….36 4.4.2 Other voices………………………………………………………….……..39 5. Chapter five: Discussion and Findings………………………………………………….…..41 5.1 A common start………………………………...………………………………..….41 5.2 Different paths – Ending up on similar policies…………………..…………….….42 5.2.1 Self Censorship……………………………………………………………..44 5.2.2 Effort to control independents………………………………………………45 5.3 Risking to ensure two sided coverage………………………………………………46 5.4 Nowadays policies. …………………………………………………………………47 CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………………………………………………48 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………….…..50

v ABREVIATIONS

CPJ Committee for Protection of Journalists DoD Department of Defence SAFE Securing Access to Free Expression US United States USA United States of America USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics WWII World War II OWI Office of War Information POW Prisoner Of War ICC International Criminal Court

1

INTRODUCTION East versus West media policies From industrial to information war

This paper is concerned with comparing the USA and Russian military approach to the media and war reporting. As the nature of war has significantly changed since the end of World War II (WWII), changes on the relationship between military and media have also occurred, in order to adapt to the new challenging environment, as we moved from an industrial to an information type of war. During 20th-century wars, the entire populace was often mobilised in support of the nation in struggle. War economies would then have been established, with industry and the war effort conjoined, males enlisted to fight, and women sent to jobs in factories and fields. In the era of Information War, the military has adequate numbers of specialists to fly powerful airplanes and to operate complex missiles, and, by extension, only a few key industries such as computing and aerospace need to be closely wedded to the war capability. Information War can thereby be waged with surprisingly little direct effect on the citizens in whose name it is fought (Tumber & Webster 2006) Information War is different from previous wars in that, while far fewer people take part in it, and thereby there are fewer combatants who will return home to talk about their experiences, there is a massively increased media experience of Information War. In advanced societies especially, but to a greater or lesser degree everywhere, Information War commands enormous media coverage, and media are so much more extensive than ever before. Audiences follow the course of war through television especially, through rolling news, through Internet sites, through emails as well as through the more traditional newspapers and magazines. Those who conduct such war make strenuous efforts to manage what people learn about it. Perception management is an integral part of Information War, so critical is public opinion in such conflict. Those with Information War capability, are also the best positioned to exercise control over consciousness (Tumber et al. 2006). However, so chaotic, dense and fast-changing is the information environment of war that even the USA or Russia is seriously limited in how much they can restrict what is shown round the world to suit its own perspective. Media role in that information war is of course the most significant one. Military and Media always had a complex relationship in times of war. Both USA and Russia tried through the past century to implement policies to control information and regulate their relationships with the media. USA has tried different approaches, which finally led them to introduce the “tactic” of embedded 2 media as the best approach. Russia seems to have adopted these policies, including the practice of embedded journalism, but customised according to its own objectives. In both cases those tactics seem to have served well the two superpowers. Today there seem to be by the USA military a turn also to journalists operating independently, as U.S. military officials who have rewritten the Department of Defence (DoD) military’s Law of War Manual, on July 2016, introduce supportive measures that imply a new policy on them. On the other had USSR has been through different approaches to media, at least since the turmoil of glasnost, but even today. Russia’s policies tent to resemble to those used by the Western militaries, as Russian military journalism has opened its gates to other independent journalist and international media. Embedding has become part of this policy too, although under different regulations. What are really the differences between the framing of an American embedded journalist and a Russian military journalist and what are the similarities? Is embedded journalism a way to control - frame information by providing one side coverage or, due to the extreme danger an international journalist has to face in a conflict zone today, is it an unavoidable situation that gives him the unique opportunity to be in the frontline, under an as safe as possible environment, being able to eyewitness the facts? But also, as military - media relationship is now impossible to be controlled due to the evolvement in communications and new media-new forms of journalism, have the approaches used by both US and Russia military come to the same outcome, in order to adapt to the new environment? As the intention of this research is to compare the approach of United States and Russian - Soviet military relation to the media, it is considered being of great importance to run a retrospect on what this relation and the differences among the methods used by both military parties have been, before the beginning of the Cold War and how it evolved to the nowadays situation, beginning from the Second World War (WWII), the time when, by all measures, war reporting came of age, the period between 1939 and 1945. So, the first and the second chapter of this paper will be concerned with a retrospect of USA and USSR - Russia relationship with the media, since the begging of WWII, following its evolvement, concluding and stressing their nowadays relationship, especially the practices used by both militaries in the cases of second Gulf and second Chechnya wars, as those have been the last official declared wars for them. The third chapter stretches on the danger journalists face in war zones and concerns raised by both sides experts, US and Russians, as well as practices in order to support them, while the fourth examines how embedded reporters’ coverage has been framed by them in the cases of the last two officially declared wars, in comparison to the coverage provided by their independent colleagues. Those two chapters will help to come into a conclusion weather the use of embedded is a descent solution for a journalist that wants to get eye witnessing of the first line, but in a certain 3 safety - if such exists in a war zone anyway, or it is just a way to frame the facts in favour of the military, providing one sided coverage. Finally, a discussion follows, where all of the above are put together to look for similarities and differences in what concerns the bias, the framings, the themes used, the relationship of the journalists with the personnel in the military units and to finalise answering the questions raised above and be able to come up with conclusions.

4

CHAPTER ONE The USA approach

1.1 From Patriotic to Embedded Journalism This chapter refers to the military - media relationship of US, since the Patriotic journalism and how it evolved through other conflicts, up to Iraq war, where broad use of embedded media have been implemented. Starting from WWII, the first war correspondents have been following the army in its operations, dressed with a military uniform in most of the cases or even being military men themselves. After trying different approaches and learning from failures in handling the media, US military has finally introduced the practice of embedded journalists, that join the army on the front lines, much like their ancestors did, providing a positive coverage of the conflict, in favour of the military.

1.2 World War II: War correspondence coming to age World War II has been a global conflagration that has elicited a massive response from the free press around the world. Radio and print journalism continued, even in countries under repressive regimes, but the rigid central control among with the propaganda of the dictates party compromised their effectiveness. The United States, radio broadcasting and newspapers have been covering the war which had already started in Europe since it first begun, with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the official declaration of war two days later by France and Great Britain. At the same time correspondents from the Far East, have been monitoring the territorial aggressions of the Imperial Japan. The American press had been deeply involved in the reporting of the war much earlier than the US officially went to war, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In order to cover the war, the correspondents, had to travel overseas, receiving press accreditation by the US War Department. They had to wear uniforms, exactly like the soldiers, yet they were considered noncombatants and were not allowed to carry sidearms or to fire any kind of weapon at the enemy. That, in many cases, resulted in a number of American journalists to be killed, wounded, or captured. Some of them who were captured were later executed by the enemy. Journalists were allowed to cover all phases of the military operations, including actual combat. To do so, they had to go on “hitching a ride” in a jeep with officers and enlisted men and go up to the front where the fighting was taking place. Usually they would take some interviews with the soldiers and note down the what they had witnessed, such as casualties, battlefield successes etc, 5 which after their return they would write down in a story, that would be cleared by censors, and then send to their editor. But all of those stories, as already mentioned above, had to be clear through military censorship, as each of the reporters had signed a relevant pledge with the military, that would allow their presence in the front line. If a journalists would fail to do so, he would be subject to military tribunals, but was more likely to be sent home. Most correspondents honoured the pledge and scrupulously submitted all stories to censors who would use blue pencils and razor blades to eliminate words that might “give aid and comfort to the enemy.” Thus, important stories were often delayed several days to a week before they appeared in American newspapers and magazines. But although wartime journalists covered campaigns and the men who fought in them, they could not entirely practice freedom of the press. Journalism was censored and carefully controlled to support the war effort by reinforcing an image of Americans at war that would maintain morale on the home-front. Thus in journalism, as in other facets of American life, war redefines, and often restricts, liberties taken for granted during peacetime. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first to establish the Office of War Information (OWI), in 1942, that under the leadership of Elmer Davis, had the assignment to “promote public support for the American war effort at home and abroad”. Davis and the OWI played an instrumental role in prodding the American military to reveal and publicise greater information to journalists and to release more graphic imagery related to the cost of war. At the same time, the OWI, along with the military, actively encouraged journalists to report favourable stories supportive of the war effort and guidelines on what reporters should avoid covering. Although Second World War journalism would be marked by greater objectivity and depth of reporting than the coverage of the First World War, many journalists responded to the calls of military officials and the OWI to produce coverage that remained supportive of the war.

1.2.1 Bill Mauldin and Ernie Pyle Bill Mauldin and Ernie Pyle were two of the most famous American World War II patriotic journalists. Mauldin, was an army enlisted man, a gifted cartoonist working for Stars and Stripes, free daily newspaper edited by the army. His famous drawings of “Willie and Joe”, later collected in Up Front, made him the favourite of the soldiers and their families back home. As Mauldin wrote about his characters, they were men “who are able to fight a ruthless war against ruthless enemies, and still grin at themselves.” Ernie Pyle on the other hand was probably the most well known journalist of World War II, at least for the West. Pyle is a Pulitzer awarded reporter, an award that he earned for his eloquent reporting during the Italian campaign, with his famous “Captain Waskow” story, where he 6 described the anger and sadness of the men whose beloved captain’s body was brought down from an Italian mountain. The journalist died by the fires of a Japanese sniper on the island of Ie Shima, near Okinawa, on April 17, 1945, as he had himself foreseen, that he would not live through the war.

1.2.2 Stars and Stripes Newspaper The U.S. military provided its own unique coverage of the war in the Pacific and in Europe through Stars and Stripes. This soldier’s newspaper originated in 1861 during the Civil War and resurfaced in World War I in 1918, but its publication was short-lived and did not continue after 1919. Stars and Stripes reemerged as a tabloid on April 18, 1942, with its primary aim as a morale booster for U.S. troops, and has been published ever since. Multiple editions of the newspaper during the European campaign reflected the far-flung operational theatres of the war against Hitler and Mussolini—North Africa, the Mediterranean, Europe. A Pacific version of Stars and Stripes was inaugurated in May 1945 as the war moved closer to the Japanese mainland.

1.2.3 The Writing 69th The Writing 69th was a group of eight American journalists who trained to fly and flew on bomber missions over Germany with the U.S. Eighth Air Force during World War II. The Writing 69th was so christened by one of the 8th Air Force's public relations officers, perhaps Hal Leyshon or Joe Maher. The group also considered the name “The Flying Typewriters" or the "Legion of the Doomed". The Writing 69th included the likes of Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney and Robert Post. The Writing 69th included: Paul Manning: correspondent for CBS Radio, Robert Post: correspondent for The New York Times, Walter Cronkite: correspondent for United Press, Andy Rooney: correspondent for Stars and Stripes, Denton Scott: correspondent for Yank, the Army Weekly, Homer Bigart: correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, William Wade: correspondent for the International News Service, Gladwin Hill: correspondent for the Associated Press. The reporters who accompanied the 8th Air Force were required to undergo a rigorous training course in just one week. They trained in a multitude of tasks, including how to shoot weapons, despite rules barring non-combatants from carrying a weapon into combat. The men were also trained on how to adjust to high altitudes, parachuting and enemy identification. Unfortunately the first and last mission for the Writing 69th would come on February 26, 1943. A group of American B-24s and B-17s were dispatched to attack the Focke-Wulf aircraft factory in Bremen, Germany. As fate would have it, the skies over Bremen were overcast, and the bombing run had to be diverted to a secondary target, the submarine pens at Wilhelmshaven 7 (Hamilton,1999). Of the eight journalists who comprised the Legion of the Doomed, only six went on that fateful mission; Post, Cronkite, Rooney, Wade, Bigart, and Hill. Over Oldenburg, Germany, the American bomber group encountered German fighters. Post's B-24 was shot down and exploded in mid-air. Eight Air Force crewmembers were killed, along with Post. The other aircraft returned safely, though Rooney's sustained some flak (anti-aircraft) damage. Post's death effectively ended the days of reporters flying on bombing missions. Others, including Scott and Manning (who both missed the Wilhelmshaven raid), did fly after this mission, but it was not nearly as widespread as it may have been save for Post's death.

1.2.4 The Murrow Boys Another essential perspective in the media coverage of World War II was afforded by radio. The major broadcasters, ABC, CBS, and NBC, all sent journalists to report the war. Some of the most famous of these reporters were Edward R. Murrow, best known for his poignant broadcasts from London during the Nazi air raids; The Murrow Boys, or Murrow's Boys, were the CBS broadcast journalists most closely associated with Edward R. Murrow during his years at the network, most notably the years before and during World War II. Murrow recruited a number of newsmen and women to CBS during his years as a correspondent, European news chief and executive. The "Boys" were his closest professional and personal associates. They also shared Murrow’s preference for incisive, thought-provoking coverage of public affairs, abroad and at home. The work was dangerous as were the conditions under which it had to be done. Like other correspondents, Murrow's Boys barely managed to slip out of countries they had covered. They were thrown out by fascist regimes, were imprisoned, and lost family members. They took part in bomb and reconnaissance flights, accompanied the Allied forces at innumerous fronts, participated in the invasion of Normandy, squabbled among and competed with each other, and still made up a memorable team of war correspondents. It becomes obvious from the above-mentioned examples that US even before WWII had understood the need of media war coverage in line with its policy, in order to mobilise public support.

1.3 Vietnam: A lesson learned United States military didn’t prepare any formal regulations on reporting in Vietnam, due to the lack of official declaration of war. That created the need to lean on correspondents practicing censorship on a voluntary basis. But without any formal contract between the press and the military, correspondents were free to report critically on the effectiveness of the US intervention. The Wartime Information Security Program was introduced in 1971 in order to control the media, but as 8 the technology developed, it became obsolete. But, despite correspondents being critical towards US intervention, the editors in most of the cases would promote the military successes and it would be only some newspapers criticising the military tactics, while questioning US policy would be very rare (Tuosto 2008) It was the Tet Offensive, on 1968, which changed totally the media’s perspective on war. As American troops began to lose significant battles for the first time, the public and press began to challenge America’s decision to continue the fight in Vietnam. Ultimately, as journalists began reporting on the futility of sending more troops, the military began to blame the press for a lack of pro-war sentiment and the war's stalemate. Similarly, the press blamed the military for lying about the situation in Vietnam and trying to mislead the public (Tuosto 2008). The mistrust between the military and the media that was established in Vietnam is a sentiment that continues to be felt by both sides today. The widespread antipathy towards the media in American military circles previous to the Gulf War stems largely from the experience of Vietnam. In the military mind, the war could have been won had the nation not been betrayed by peace protests spurred in turn by violent images of the war on American television. As General William Westmoreland, who was in charge of U.S. forces in Vietnam, stated: "television's unique requirements contributed to a distorted view of the war...The news had to be compressed and visually dramatic." Thus, "..the war Americans saw was almost exclusively violent, miserable, or controversial" (McArthur,1992). Studies have concluded that media commentary followed public opinion rather than leading it (McArthur,1992).

1.4 The Granada invasion: Censorship Heyday The 'lesson' of Vietnam was given a first clumsy application in the Grenada invasion of 1983. Preparatory to U.S. invasion, all sea and air links with the tiny island were cut (O’Shaughnessy, 1984). Only a very few reporters made it onto the island, including Hugh O'Shaughnessy of the London Observer, who succeeded in chartering a 15-foot motor launch on Union Island near Grenada. As soon as the invasion began, U.S. Rear Admiral Joseph Metcalf warned reporters against such tricks: "Any of you guys coming in on press boats? Well, I know how to stop those press boats. We've been shooting at them. We haven't sunk any yet, but who are we to know who's on them?” (O’Shaughnessy, 1984) Officially sanctioned news stories such as those found in Newsweek played up the theme of the patriotic, competent American soldier that would later become a standard in the Gulf War. Similarities with Gulf War reportage are obvious: "In order to minimise civilian casualties, the American commanders decided against a full-scale assault. Instead they deployed small units backed by heavy air power. Inside St George's (the Grenadian capital) they fought a tough battle for Fort Rupert, where a week before troops loyal to the rebel junta had 9 executed Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. From behind the limestone walls of the French-built, 18th century fortress, Cuban and Grenadian defenders showered small-arms fire on US attack squads...Eventually the American air attack reduced Fort Rupert to a smouldering shell, with only one wall left standing.” Even on first observation, this account makes little sense. Air bombardment is hardly consistent with "minimising civilian casualties." The account of the Newsweek reporter using official sources is scathingly attacked by O’Shaughnessy: "It is not clear how the editors of Newsweek were able to reconcile their account with the fact...that Fort Rupert fell without a fight on the morning of 27 October, that no Cuban was observed fighting in St George's and that the fort still has its full complement of walls."

1.5 Gulf War: The CNN Effect The Persian Gulf War was a heavily televised war. The technological advancements, such as communication satellites, made possible a new type of war coverage (Frazier, 2001). Also the media had access to military innovations, such as the imagery obtained from “camera-equipped high-tech weaponry directed against Iraqi targets.” For the first time, people all over the world were able to watch live pictures of guided missiles strikes on their targets and fighters taking off from aircraft carriers. The images of precise land bombing and use of night vision equipment gave the reporting a futuristic spin resembling to video game imagery and encouraging the “war Drama”. Because of the pool system, however, most television networks relied heavily on the information and imagery supplied by the military. This limited the media’s ability to cover the war, despite those new technologies that created the potential for live coverage. The Pentagon carried out one of the most successful public relations campaigns in the history of modern politics in its use of the media to mobilise support for the war. The war was covered live since its beginnings by the three main American networks ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as the emerging CNN. CNN, completely dominated global coverage of the event. It had cameras and reporters in Baghdad throughout the war, a large crew in Israel, and live coverage of all US military and government press conferences. Thus its images, discourses, and material tended to shape global coverage of the event. But also during the first days of the bombing the CNN team was able to report live via radio from their hotel suite in the Rashid Hotel, while no other network was able to do this (Smith1991). The CNN live coverage from the hotel was also significant since it was unedited. This event was a critical turn to the 24-hour news coverage. Out of the CNN correspondents the one who received the most attention was Peter Arnett who became known for the controversy of his reportages. His reports on the Coalition’s POWs, on the bombing of what was claimed to be a milk factory by the 10 Iraq authorities, and on the bombing of the bunker outside Bagdad where several civilians were killed, were particularly controversial and resulted in him being tilted as anti-patriotic by some (Smith, 1991). Overall media and television reporting during this first Gulf War has received several criticisms. People like Columbia’s professor Douglas Kellner have argued that the media framed the war as an exciting narrative, turning it into a kind of dramatic, patriotic spectacle and that the anchors of the major American TV networks such as CBS presented a view that seemed to identify solely with the American Military point of view (Kelner, 1992). There was also the argument that television networks and other media did not provide a balanced account of the events because this did not further the business interests of commercial networks.

1.6 Iraq: War in the information era In the war in Iraq, the media and military continue to look for a balance between censorship and free press (Tuosto 2008). Whether to alleviate tension or to gain political and militaristic control, the Pentagon decided to be proactive about setting up safe media relations for the war in Iraq. Unlike previous attempts to keep the press away from the battlefield, the Pentagon established a system of “embedded” reporters, "a media representative remaining with a unit on an extended basis – perhaps a period of weeks or even months” (Public Affairs Guidance on Embedding Media During Possible Future Operations, 2008). In contrast, the term “unilateral” defines any un- embedded journalists who are not associated with a military unit, but instead are independent journalists, freelance journalists, or even journalists associated with a media organisation. According to the ground rules established in an official unclassified government report from 2003, the purpose of embedding the media is “to facilitate maximum, in-depth coverage of US forces in combat and related operations” (Public Affairs Guidance on Embedding Media During Possible Future Operations, 2008). However, policy 2.A. reveals a military interest not only in in- depth coverage, but also in public perception: “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.” This declaration of strong US military interest in public perception of war reveals an obsession with the interaction between media and military and a dedication of both sides to cooperate in order 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.” Both the media and military claim to strive for truth: “The public demands objectivity and journalists strive to achieve 11 it, even though critics say they miss the mark. Even if the traditional notion of objectivity as an absolute standard is often unattainable, to abandon the concept altogether would open the door to undisciplined, irresponsible journalism.”(Fox & Park, 2006). And in order to effectively and efficiently relay “the factual story,” the Pentagon has chosen to embed media representatives. While appearing to be a perfect solution to the unsolved problem of unbiased and in-depth war correspondence, this new practice creates several unprecedented difficulties for both journalists and their readers. (Tuosto, 2008) The coverage itself became a source of controversy, as media outlets were accused of pro-war bias, reporters were casualties of both Iraqi and American gunfire, and claims of censorship and propaganda became widespread. The most popular cable network in the United States for news on the war was Fox News, and had begun influencing other media outlets' coverage (Rutenberg, 2003). On-screen during all live war coverage by Fox News was a waving flag animation in the upper left corner and the headline "Operation Iraqi Freedom" along the bottom. The network has shown the American flag animation in the upper-left corner since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. A study conducted in 2003 by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) tracking the frequencies of pro-war and antiwar commentators on the major networks found that pro-war views were overwhelmingly more frequent. MSNBC also brought the American flag back on screen and regularly ran a tribute called "America's Bravest" which showed photographs sent by family members of troops deployed in Iraq (Schifferes, 2003). The most noted characteristic of the media coverage so far, however, is the new system of “embedding” some 600 journalists with American and British troops. On balance, however, Americans seem far better served by having the embedding system than they were from more limited press pools during the Gulf War of 1991 or only halting access to events in Afghanistan. Moreover, the first week of the war hints that fears that the embedding system would mostly just co-opt the press or would fatally risk military security in time may wane. Caroline Wyatt, embedded journalist in Iraq, writes about her experience: “The Iraq conflict of 2003, a much more contentious war, was rather different, and embedding became increasingly controversial. It was indeed a way for us in the media to secure first-hand access to the battlefield, but in return, we had to sign up to the Ministry’s of Defence (MoD) “Green Book” agreeing that our reports would be read for “operational Security” and promising that we would not betray operational plans or secrets.” (Wyatt, 2003) Later, Caroline Wyatt will write in another one of her articles: “The military determination to stay in charge of their battlefield and use the media as a weapon of war within the information battle-space has remained, with the use of embeds now a matter of routine in Afghanistan for those wishing to report first-hand on the NATO campaign. Today, those embedding with American forces are allowed relative unlimited access to the troops 12 with no media minder present, while those embedded with British forces still have civilian or military media minders.” It worth mentioning that in separate incidents, at least three different Western reporters were fired or disciplined due to their actions in covering the war. Peter Arnett, an NBC and National Geographic correspondent, was fired for giving an interview with Iraqi officials in which he questioned the United States' role and saying the "first war plan had failed.” (CNN, 1/04/2003). Brian Walski of the Los Angeles Times was fired on March 31 for altering a photo of a U.S. soldier warning Iraqi civilians to take cover from an Iraqi aerial bombing. Geraldo Rivera left Iraq after drawing a crude map in the sand during a live broadcast on Fox News, which raised concerns at the Pentagon that he was possibly revealing vital troop movements on air. In addition, during the Iraq war, the U.S. detained many journalists precisely for their alleged contacts for journalistic purposes with enemy forces, according to Committee of Protection for Journalists research, while others were held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

1.7 Moving forward On July 22, 2016 the Pentagon announced a new version of the military's Law of War Manual, making a significant shift on its policy to independent journalists. According to the new rewritten manual the Pentagon no longer considers journalists operating independently of U.S. military forces as potential spies, terrorists, or saboteurs. The manual's revisions, which follow Pentagon meetings with news and press freedom groups including the Committee to Protect Journalists, recognises the role of journalists to independently report armed conflicts, and, in doing so, to arrange meetings or have contacts with different sides, including "enemy personnel." The Pentagon released its first Department of Defence wide Law of War Manual in June 2015. It included language that allowed journalists to be categorised as "unprivileged belligerents," which could have allowed military commanders to detain journalists indefinitely outside the rules of war without ever charging them. "The new language is a seismic shift for the U.S. military," said Committee of Protection for Journalists (CPJ) Senior Adviser Frank Smyth (https://cpj.org/2016/07/pentagons-revised-law-of-war-manual-recognizes-rol.php#more). This affirmation of journalists' right to report armed conflicts freely and from all sides is especially welcome at a time when governments, militias, and insurgent forces around the world are routinely flouting the laws of war.” As the information environment changes and control of information gets almost impossible, the US military makes a significant turn towards the independent journalists.

13 CHAPTER TWO USSR - Russia Approach

2.1 Military and War Journalism from USSR to Post-Soviet Russia Reform This chapter will concern with the policies implemented by USSR and Russia in order to regulate their relationship with the media, in order to control information and motivate public support. The Crimean War has been where the new Russian identity was formed, but also the beginning of war corresponding. Following that, we will refer to WWII, where Soviet journalists have been integrated into military units, to Afghanistan War, where strict censorship allowed access only to military journalists and to the great turmoil that glasnost brought to Russia’s military journalism. Finally, we will examine how the military policy of Russia has been formed during the last two wars in Chechnya and the use of embedded journalists as a method to deal with new media and modern forms of journalism.

2.2 Crimea: The generation of the new Russian identity In order to be able to understand the relation between the military and the media in USSR and even in nowadays Russia it is very important to know how the “new Russian Identity” have been constructed during the recent history. The Crimean War (1853-1856), is seen as the first global conflict, but at the same time the first conflict that created for the Soviets the discussion of the “sacred war” concept. The 11-month defence of Sebastopol was seen as a symbol for that “new Russian identity” at that time (Pavlenko, 2014). It has been the event that triggered major reforms in the judiciary and administrative fields as well as among the press. As a new collective identity centred around the sacred grave of Sebastopol, the coverage of the war in general created a standard in combat journalism. Journalists reported about war with an epic, heroic tone constantly implying the idea of a “sacred war”. The general idea of “dying for the sake of the tsar” was glorified. At that time, the representation of the enemy was particularly distinctive. As the French and the English were seen as potential allies, they were pictured in a quite neutral way, but quite weak in comparison to Russians. The French and the English soldiers would only tried to save their own lives while Russians were ready to die. One of the first Russian war correspondents at that time was Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War, and he recounted his experience in his “Sebastopol Sketches” (1855). The first of them received a favourable welcome, but the second was not published because Tolstoy lampooned war field heroism in this book and made fun of the attack on Sevastopol and the city’s fall. In the 1870s, there was still a remembrance 14 of the “sacred Sebastopol,” but new aspects, such as problems of armament, also appeared in the coverage by media (Pavlenko, 2014). But when talking about Crimean War, we definitely have to mention that this has been the first major armed conflict to make use of the modern technological invention of the time, the electric telegraph. Thanks to a cable the allies had laid along the bottom of the Black Sea, reports from the battlefield could reach Paris and London on the same day. By the following day, reports from the front appeared in the morning papers. These technological advances gave birth to a new profession, the war correspondent, such as William Howard Russell, who was writing for The Times, embedded with the British Army and Roger Fenton, the first war photographer.

2.3 WWII - Reporting the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945 During the WWII Soviet war correspondents were fully integrated into the fighting units and subsequently out of the 943 war correspondents assigned to army and naval units, the 225 perished at the front. Their full integration into the combat units created a common sense of danger between the soldiers and the correspondents. Journalists on the frontline were given a relative freedom on selecting their own approaches to report on the chaos of WWII, but the sanctification of camaraderie among men resulted in producing emotionally laden notions of duty and friendship among soldiers in the face of death for a national cause. The change in themes after the start of the war, with its emphasis on male friendship, had a great deal to do with the effects of total war on all Soviet citizens and the frontline experience of the correspondents themselves. That have been a significant departure from journalistic practices and ways of imagining the Soviet collective before WWII. It was this fellowship and self-assuredness brought into existence an imagined national consensus in coverage and literature foretelling about the inevitable and righteous victory of Russian civilisation and humanism over “Nazi barbarism.” The idealised traits of warrior masculinity, the selfless liberators, and saviours of the nation, infused ideals of masculinity and shaped the gender order for decades to come. Some of the most well known war correspondents working with the Red Army were Boris Gorbatov, Konstantin Simonov, Aleksandr Fadeev, Pyotr Pavlenko, Konstantin Fedin and Ilya Ehrenburg. But the most famous among them was Vassily Grossman.

2.3.1 Vasily Grossman Vasily Grossman has been one of the most famous war correspondents of WWII. Although Grossman was initially exempt from military service, he volunteered for the front, where he spent more than 1,000 days. He became a war correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), which were the Red Army popular newspaper . He covered the major events of the war, such as the Battle 15 of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk and the Battle of Berlin. Except for reporting, he has written a number of novels (such as The People are Immortal (Народ бессмертен)) that were published in newspapers. Writing novels such as “Stalingrad” (1950), later renamed “For a Just Cause”, which were based on his own experiences, made him to be regarded as a legendary war hero. Grossman described Nazi ethnic cleansing in German occupied Ukraine and Poland, and the liberation by the Red Army of the Nazi-German Treblinka and Majdanek extermination camps. He collected some of the first eyewitness accounts — as early as 1943 — of what later became known as the Holocaust. His article The Hell of Treblinka[ (1944) was disseminated at the Nuremberg Trials as evidence for the prosecution. Yet, after World War II, Grossman's faith in the Soviet state was shaken by Joseph Stalin's turn towards antisemitism in the final years before his death in 1953. While Grossman was never arrested by the Soviet authorities, his two major literary works (Life and Fate and Forever Flowing) were censored during the ensuing Nikita Khrushchev period as unacceptably anti-Soviet, and Grossman himself became in effect a nonperson.

2.3.2 Krasnaia Zvezda (“Red Star)” Soviet military have been making a broad use of journals, produced by military journalists. Krasnaia Zvezda was the most well known military journal, launched in 1924, aiming to propagate military reform plans designed by the new authorities and forge links between the armed forces and the population (Momzikoff, 2014). Nicknamed “zvezdochka” (“little star”) it was widely distributed at the end of the 1920s (100,000 printed copies)(Osveyan, 1990). Such importance for a single journal in the media landscape reflected the place given to military matters in Soviet culture. The aim was to ensure moral support, a positive picture of the armed forces, and to develop soldiers’ knowledge in military sciences. Not surprisingly, to meet this dual objective (propaganda and technical learning), the number of newspapers and journal copies devoted to military issues grew constantly during the hard 1941-1942 years, reaching in 1942 a total figure of 725 journals (Zukov, 1986). But the peculiarity of the Soviet military press was its very large civilian audience - as was the case of Krasnaia Zvezda (Momzikoff, 2014).

2.4 Afghanistan: Military Journalists Only During the Cold War period, taking in account the weight of military secrecy, control over media and publications was very tight. The job of war correspondent was only for military men who had journalist training. Coverage of conflicts was also controlled by censorship, which increased after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979. A decision issued by the Ministry of Defence in 1981 prohibited showing any picture of Soviet troops, either in action or on the 16 battlefield (Harisson, 2008) so that the only images of Soviet soldiers authorised (by the decision) were those of World War II... To maintain this control, military journalism had to remain a military matter. The embargo on military information was clearly operating during the war in Afghanistan involving Soviet troops. In fact, after the Second World War, many demobilised young soldiers switched to military journalism. The young soldier K.P Golovanov, who wrote novels for children, entered the prestigious Military Political Academy named after V.I. Lenin in 1949 and became a correspondent for Krasnaia Zvezda four years later (Golovanov, 1974). Andrei Aliagev, a correspondent for Krasnaia Zvezda and Na strazhe rodiny during the 1970s, graduated from the Lvov Military Political School of the Soviet Army in 1966 and is known for having covered the Soviet-Afghan war. These institutions, along with the Military Academy (Frunze) were designed to train military journalists and experts whose mission was to shape a controlled and powerful image of the Red Army. Nikolai Starodymov, a well-known military journalist, during an interview for the “Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies” (PIPSS), says: “Censorship began to annoy me when I was sent to Afghanistan, and I started to struggle against it…. When I arrived in Afghanistan, I was completely ready as a military journalist. I had a lot of experience.They sent me to Afghanistan in 1985. Gorbashev had just come to power. Perestroika and glasnost' had emerged when I received a call from the Directorate of Staff of the military district. Starting from this mission, I took part to in more than 20 combat operations. I took part in combat and I took part in the raids; but I did not kill anyone. In October 1985 there was an important operation in a city. I observed how one kills, how one dies. And I was confronted with the problem of censorship, because we were not allowed to write about anything. Friendly fires occured. But we were forbidden to publish anything about it. Nor about the blood - a sea of blood - the corpes, the smell… During several operations I was with the doctor - a friend of mine. I had no place to sleep so I slept in the ambulance that transported the wounded and the dead. "Tabletka" they called it. My friend was horrified because the inside was covered with blood. He was supposed to operate their too when needed. I repeat: I was not against the Soviet authorities. I understood the ideology and the limitations on information, but I considered that censorship was too tight. At that time I wrote for different newspapers: the military district newspaper, Krasnaia Zvezda etc., but very few of my papers went through. A censor helped us to erase what could not be said. Most of the work censored was mine. I understood that I could not fight against the system. I thought that in the end it would reach somebody. The censor was a great person; he came and sat with us and said "let's try to find a way to bypass censorship". And all together we chose what to change and what to cut.”

17 2.5 Glasnost: Impact on Soviet Union’s military journalism In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev, took over, implementing “Glasnost”. Changes on military affairs and reforms carried in this area had a significant impact on Soviet Union’s military journalism. The most important aspect of Gorbachev’s new policy was the well-known “glasnost” (“transparency”). Nowadays, early glasnost is seen more as an increase in the flow of information rather than an easing of censorship restrictions. It was conceived as a tool to serve the new political course and attract the intelligentsia (Zarestskaïa-Balsente, 2002). But it soon escaped the Party’s control and began to unleash new forces at the end of the 1980s. As far as military matters are concerned, glasnost’s novelty lay in the increase in non-military press articles dealing with military issues. In a certain way, military matters were not military journalists’ prerogative anymore. The image of a perfect Red Army was tarnished (Momzikoff, 2014). But starting from 1987, the glasnost process also affected military journals and newspapers. New topics introduced revealed huge concerns among military establishment regarding defense reforms and the emergency of a military glasnost. The number of articles devoted to the problems inside the armed forces grew constantly during the 1980s. Publications regarding “Troop morale and military education system” rose from 4.4% of total publications in 1985 to 8.5% in 1991 (Kozlov, 2009). Conversely, the topic “International questions, ideological pressure on USSR, military issues worldwide” fell 50% from 1986 to 1991 (Kozlov, 2009). More generally speaking, military journalism began to deal with new topics such as the precarious condition of servicemen, low wages, alcoholism and dedovshchina. The glasnost years muddied the waters of military journalism. First, it gave civilian “party journalists” the right to deal with issues regarding armed forces. Second, it launched new topics such as the everyday life, human aspects of military service, financial situation, or housing of servicemen. Third, glasnost opened the way to criticism and damaged the image among Soviet citizens of a Red Army that was once above suspicion. Gorbachev’s New Thinking, peace propaganda policy, disarmament initiatives, renouncement of the use of force in international relations contradicted the earlier perception of the Red Army as a bulwark against aggressive Western imperialism (Momzikoff, 2014). As glasnost opened up reporting after 1985, military journalists became more diverse. The opening up and liberalisation of the Russian media world extended to military journalism. Censorship (Glavlit) disappeared. The former Soviet army newspapers did continue, working under the control of the defence ministry. They largely remained attached to the Soviet Army’s “Cold War” editorial line.

18 2.6 Chechnya: Two wars, one media policy, a Waterloo and a Great Success A new era has begun for the Russian military relations with the media after Michael Gorbachov’s glasnost (transparency). In the community of the war journalists new professionals start to appear. International media go out to the operational areas of the former Soviet Union and begin establishing relations with the Russian Journalists. Yuri Tutor, internationally recognised war photographer, describes his cooperation with Associated Press in an interview with PIPSS. At this period also women start to appear in military journalism, an up to now men’s affair. Anna Politkovskaya and Olga Allenova are two of the most well-known Russian women war journalists that covered the Chechnya War. The military campaign in Chechnya from December 1994 to August 1996 became the "first real test of journalists' freedoms" since the end of the Soviet Union1 and loomed large in perceptions about the Russian media for the rest of the 1990s. The predominant slant of war coverage became a source of pride for many journalists. Though damning news reports did not end the bloodshed, steadfast public opposition to the war impelled Yel'tsin to pursue a ceasefire agreement while running for reelection in 1996. Both supporters and opponents of the military campaign believed that media coverage fostered and sustained the majority view. Yel'tsin rarely retreated from unpopular policies, but his turnaround on Chechnya arguably demonstrated that journalists had helped bring some degree of transparency and therefore accountability to Russian politics (Zasurskiy, 1999). Equally important, threats from high-ranking officials failed to change the tone or content of war coverage, revealing that editorial autonomy was real and resilient to pressure from above. For those reasons, commentators have viewed the coverage of Chechnya as "Russian journalism's finest hour” (Ellis, 1999) and a sign that "Russia had broken, however imperfectly and incompletely, with the Soviet legacy of information control.” (Mickiewicz, 1999) Yassen Zassoursky, dean of the Moscow State University’s Journalism Faculty, had hailed coverage of the first war as "a remarkable achievement of Russian democratic journalism,” (Zassoursky, 2001) but in late 1999 he found little to praise about the “one-sided coverage" favouring the official viewpoint (Dolgov,1999). State policies during the second war gave rise to "a news blackout that benefited only the Kremlin” (Zolotov, 1999). If the first post-Soviet war in Chechnya seemed to prove that the Russian authorities could not manipulate the media, the military campaign that began in 1999 suggested just the opposite. Many reporters for private as well as state-owned media now relied on an official information centre that one veteran war correspondent described as a "propaganda department”, According to Valeriy Yakov, quoted in Michael R. Gordon, (NYT, 28/11/1999) The Kremlin's approach to managing media coverage of Chechnya in 1999 and 2000 strongly resembled the tactics that failed during the first war: imposing restrictions on accreditation 19 and access to the war zone; releasing daily doses of upbeat information about the fighting; appealing to journalists' sense of patriotism; seeking to discredit dissenting voices in the media; and applying criminal law selectively against journalists who strayed from acceptable topics. But this time Putin not only have more cards to play than did Yel'tsin five years earlier, he also appeared less inhibited about using the levers of power to keep journalists on board with the war effort. With his approval, the Media Ministry (which did not exist during the first war) applied legal pressure to deter journalists from interviewing Chechen leaders. Whereas Yel'tsin never publicly endorsed the criminal investigation of an NTV correspondent in 1995, Putin defended the unlawful detention of a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter in early 2000, advising journalists on an interview published in Kommersant, 10 March 2000 to "observe the laws of your country if you are counting on those laws being observed with respect to you.” New arrangements had to be done and new rules and constrains had to be imposed in order to regulate the new relationship of the media with the military and the release of military information. During the International Round Table titled :“Military and War Journalism from the USSR to Russia: Field Practices and Legal Regulations”, that took place on April 15th, 2014, Andrey Raskin, Acting Head of the chair of broadcasting activities at Moscow State University’s Faculty of Journalism, described a certain distrust in the armed forces towards independent journalists. In the Russian armed forces, this distrust has given rise to new communication strategies better suited to post-Soviet political and media reality. In addition, the military authorities were aware of the need to work with the journalists. Constrains had to become more flexible, most of the times inspired by western practices. The use of the embedded journalism makes it possible for them to have some control on the transmission of information. This system also enables war journalists to be at the centre of the events and broadcast factual news, but on the other hand it creates problems for the military as far as their surveillance is concerned, as well as their official exploitation at times of crisis. This has been a new communication practice, applied by the Russian military during the Second Chechnya war, after 1999 and on. Most of the journalists seemed to appreciate this opportunity given, despite the restrains that they might face. A well-known Russian television presenter, Aleksandr Sladkov, said: “Embedded journalism is a good progressive way to regulate the links between civilians and the military. A large-scale example of embedded journalism would be in the Soviet Army, during World War II, when 280 operators were recording films”. Such a reference to the Great Patriotic War is commonly used to justify current cooperation arrangements between the armed forces and journalists (Daucé, 2014). Due to lopsided majorities of Russians as a just war against “terrorists,” Russia’s brutal assault on Chechnya was just as enthusiastically hailed by the whole country. In contrast to the first Chechen war, a strong mood of patriotism was widespread. Putin benefited from the rise of the patriotic sentiment caused by the 20 war and played a prominent role in leading and coordinating the fighting with what he called Chechen “terrorists.” His language was brutal and his means was cruel. He was uncompromising in his determination to exterminate what he saw as a terrorist nest in Chechnya, stating that Russian forces would “be following terrorists everywhere (Zhang, 2006). If we catch them in a toilet, then we will bury them in their own crap” (Kovalev, 2000). However, the enemies of Putin were not only Chechen “terrorists,” but also those insubordinate journalists. Having failed to dominate the news agenda during the first war in Chechnya, the Russian authorities managed to minimize criticism of the second military campaign in Chechnya (Zhang, 2006). In order to prevent correspondents from gathering and reporting information that contradicted official statements about the fighting, the authorities tightly controlled journalists’ movement in Chechnya and imposed special accreditation requirements (Fawn and White, 2002). In Chechnya journalists are mainly located at two locations: the Russian military base in Khankala and the complex of buildings of the Moscow-backed Chechen government in Grozny. Without special permission they were restricted to these two places to produce their reports and they were also closely watched by the government (Zhang, 2006). Any movement around Chechnya was possible only in the presence either of soldiers or officials, or as a part of some delegation (Maksakov, 2002). Although a great number of them were professionals, dangers were real, and several journalists were kidnapped or even killed. In July 1999 Vladimir Yatsina, an ITAR-TASS photographer and correspondent, was kidnapped and then, in 2000, killed in Ingushetia. On October 29, 1999, TV-Tsenter correspondent Ramzan Mezhidov and Grozny TV cameraman Shamil Gigayev were killed. On May 12, 2000, the TV program “Nashe Vremya” (Our Time) photographer and correspondent Alexander Yefremov was killed.99 On November 20, 2000, TV cameraman Adam Tepsurgayev was killed (Maksakov, 2002). Moreover, Putin also opened a government briefing centre dedicated to eliminating independent journalism about Chechnya. Some critical journalists were even detained by the government. Andrei Babitsky was one of the victims. A Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent, he was detained in January 2000 (Price, Richter, and Yu, 2002). He was widely known for challenging the Kremlin’s restrictions on Chechen war coverage. Nevertheless, his activities were regarded by Russian authorities as treason. He was accused of as conspiracy with Chechen terrorists just because he reported from Chechen side. His case was not an isolated one. On January 17, 2000, the Police apprehended Alexander Khinshtein, a Moskovesky Komsomolets (Komsomol of Moscow) journalist, who had published critical articles on the Chechen War. They attempted to take him to a psychiatric clinic outside of Moscow (Price, Richter, and Yu, 2002). Their treatments sent a message to other Russian journalists that those who challenged the 21 authorities could expect to be branded as “enemies of the state.” (Gray, 2000) On October 9, 2001, Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist specializing in the Chechen problem for Novoya Gazeta, announced that she was forced into leaving Moscow for Vienna, Austria, following death threats because of her reporting, in particular an article talking about the fact that a military helicopter with General Anatoli Psdniakov on board was shot down on September 17, 2001. One of major goals of the government information policy was to hide the true figures of Russian military casualties. Afraid that the public mood would directly influence the popularity of the President, Putin’s administration did not want this issue to inflame the Russian people. Outwardly, the administration seemed to be successful in controlling the war coverage in Chechnya, as the Russian media coverage of the second Chechen war have been overall positive. Significant role on this played that even the restrictions put on journalists have been characterised as being “entirely normal” (Laura Belin, 2002). Also, according to Zhang, 2006, Chechen kidnappers ingratitude towards journalists who helped rebel fighters plead their case during the first war, along with the immense cruelty toward their hostages led the journalists on a positive bias towards the Russian army. In addition the policies that the Russians implemented to control information, such as limiting access to war zones, the use of official press releases, the denial of civil casualties, were nothing more than imitations of the American practices to handle the media during the Gulf and Yugoslavian wars. The Russian attempts to deter media from presenting the viewpoints of Chechen leaders, are in most of the cases justified. It is hard to imagine a country in which the government would permit journalists to move about freely, broadcasting interviews with separatists. Indeed, the Media Ministry’s policy of warning media that interviewed Chechen leaders was less restrictive than the British ban on broadcasting direct statements by representatives of Sinn Fein or the IrishRepublican Army from 1988 to 1994. During the second Chechen war, the Russian policy implemented has proven to be very successful in its effort to manage media coverage. The second half of the 1990 is the time when important changes in the power relationship between the Russian state and the media sector occurred. Yet, a very small part of Russian media did not follow the official script about how the war was progressing. But through sophisticated and in some cases unlawful policies, officials and military managed to hinder news-gathering by correspondents working for those outlets. In September 2000, Putin approved the Information Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation. The doctrine developed the National Security Concept of the Russian Federation as applied to the information sphere and also highlighted the four components of the national interests of the Russian Federation in the information sphere. One of the components is “the information support of the Russian Federation state policy, delivering to Russian and international publics trustworthy 22 information about state policy and the official position of Russia on socially significant events of internal and international life.” More recently, this independence has increased as a result of new information and communication technologies that extend the range of journalistic practice. Reduced technical constraints, miniaturisation of recording devices, and speed of transmission lead to faster circulation of information, including from war zones. The possibilities available to military journalists seem therefore to be widening. The work of military journalists is regulated by new legislative codes. In the early 2010s, a large number of laws were passed to control the activities of newspapers, their editorial staff and the independent journalists who produce blogs (now deemed to be mass media if they have more than 3,000 hits a day). The role of Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) in controlling media content has also been extended (Daucé, 2014). Although direct institutional constraint in the form of censorship has disappeared, political control over military journalists has taken on a variety of new forms. “The laws regulating journalism in Russia are not that bad since they are inspired by French laws; however, in the past few years they have been amended significantly. The laws now act in a more restrictive way, with the excuse of the last counterterrorist laws’ boundaries”, says Galina Arapova from the Mass Media Defence Centre. But these legal forms of control of journalists’ activities do not guarantee the professionals’ security. Violence against critical independent journalists (the murders, for example, of Dmitri Kholodov and Anna Politkovskaya) illustrates the dangers of the profession. In the past three years, 250 journalists have been killed in Russia (according to Arapova).

23 CHAPTER THREE War Correspondents and dangers in the war zone

3.1 Not a military trick This chapter will refer to the dangers that a war correspondent faces in a war zone. Aim of this chapter is to examine the conditions that urge journalist to work close to the military, seeking protection, when trying to cover stories in an insecure environment. These are real dangers they have to face while in the middle of a conflict and do not consist a military trick to justify the choice of embedding with the army, in order to be able to have a frontline experience, under relatively reduced danger, in comparison to working alone. Both American and Russians have expressed common worries about war correspondents, embedded or not, such as worries about regulating the new journalists status, embedded reporters losing their civilian status, use of identification emblem on war correspondents and providing proper training before going on an assigment.

3.2 Reporting War: A dangerous Job Reporting war has always been a dangerous job, yet that danger is becoming more and more increased nowadays, as the very nature of war is changing. Being a journalist alone is enough of a dangerous job anyway. According to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), more than 1200 journalists have been killed since 1992, out of whom 257 were killed in crossfire. More than 30 journalists, are murdered every year, while the murderers go unpunished in nearly nine of 10 cases. Hundreds of journalists each year are attacked, threatened, or harassed. Many are watched or have their phone calls and Internet communications intercepted. More than 150 are imprisoned at any given time, some without even being charged with a crime. At least 35 journalists are missing. In addition, journalists often face emotional stress whenever they cover stories involving pain or loss of life, from the sexual abuse of children to terrorist attacks against civilians. As digital technology enables nearly everyone to follow not only events in real time and reporting by specific journalists and media outlets, violent and corrupt actors worldwide seem to understand how information shapes perceptions, but also how the work of individual journalists can threaten their activities. The result is a more hostile environment for the press in any place, but also in international war zones, more than every where else.

3.3 New working conditions, new journalism and an unclear legal status Journalists are now called to work in a new environment, different than before. As the newsroom cutbacks are growing, more freelancers start reporting on the frontline stories. Although many of them do carry press credentials from major media organisations, they are still contract employees 24 who may be responsible for their own preparation, equipment, insurance, and care. In addition, as new technology gave birth to the phenomenon of new journalism, citizen journalists of all kinds are likely to face the same challenges. Unpaid contributors are reporting stories for evolving new-media networks with little or no support or training. Today, more journalists than ever are deciding what stories to cover and how to approach them. In other words, they are working largely on their own. The “new journalism” phenomenon, taking advantage of the evolvements in communication technologies, is rapidly growing through the use of blogs and social networks. There is a decline in the number of journalists working in the traditional media, while the number of these new journalists is increasing. In addition the traditional media are more and more often accepting the material coming from “new journalism” as a valid source, giving it a certain legitimacy. “New journalists”, actually are bloggers and people methodically reporting what they witness on the social media. But as they are not “traditional” journalists, they suffer from an unclear legal status. Authorities from many countries currently try to regulate this status of “new journalist”. But on the same time, establishing a legal framework for them, would thus have them being exposed to the risk of having their freedom limited in several ways. On the other hand if not, they cannot receive the same protection as the traditional journalists, which is absolutely necessary for them.

3.4 The challenge for a today’s war reporter Jeremy Thompson from Sky News, commending on war corresponding said: ’There are a lot of people who, in this business, find it simply not for them to go out in the rough and tumble of the badlands of journalism.’ The thrill of writing an I-nearly-died-a-gruesome-death story is unbeatable . . . War makes you feel special; it makes you feel better than all the war virgins back home. But here’s the downside: writing an I-nearly-died-a-gruesomedeath story requires you to nearly die a gruesome death . . . And was it all worth it, for a fuck-you and a front page? (Ayres 2005, p. 265) Reporting war is inherently dangerous. Some correspondents might be tempted to stay away from trouble in a comfortable hotel, but if they are doing their job properly – and as we have seen, there is a widely shared conviction about what that entails – then journalists must get amongst groups of people whose aim is to destroy one another. Combatants are heavily armed, wound up, and often resentful of those who are just there to write about it. Correspondents have a lot to fear – confrontations with drunken militias, stand-offs with angry soldiers, being hit by friendly fire, being seized by guerrillas, accosted by youths carrying AK47s, and even being driven at breakneck speed along unknown roads in the black of night. (E. Tumber and F. Webster, 2006) Adrian Monck, among others ranked traffic accidents a major concern ‘for almost all journalists abroad [because] there are a lot of manic, odd people on the road’ as he says. It is not a surprise that under such circumstances, many journalists are killed and injured while doing their 25 jobs. Several hundreds as the numbers of CPJ indicate, have lost their lives over the past decade. Gavin Hewitt, looking back over 20 years, thinks the job has got worse in this respect: ‘It’s become a very dangerous world . . . I don’t think there’s ever been a period when doing the job . . . has seemed so full of risk.’ Julian Manyon, as with other experienced reporters, concurs, commenting that Iraq ‘is very, very dangerous at the moment’, now a place where journalists are seen by the ‘anti- American insurgency’ as targets. The war in Iraq has highlighted the risk that journalists confront in covering conflict. Between March 2003 and July 2005, 52 journalists were killed on duty in Iraq.1 Media workers, who work with journalists in supporting roles as drivers, interpreters, fixers and guards have also been targets, with 21 killed during the same period (http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/gulf03/iraq_media_wrkrs_killed.html). Photographing and recording combat are among the most dangerous assignments and photographers and sound men suffer similar losses as journalists. The majority of them died in cross-fire in places such as Syria, Iraq, Israel and occupied Palestinian territory, Bosnia, Somalia Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia and Russia. But others were deliberately murdered because of images they had captured (http://www.cpj.org/killed/Ten_Year_Killed/Intro.html). While conflict and war provide the backdrop to much of the violence against the press, CPJ research demonstrates that the vast majority of journalists killed since 1995 were murdered rather than killed in crossfire. In fact, according to CPJ statistics, only 20 percent died in cross-fire, while 72 percent were murdered, often in reprisal for their reporting. The CPJ state that the remaining journalists were killed in conflict situations that cannot be described as combat – while covering violent street demonstrations, for example. A. Raskin argues that among all the journalists who have been killed, only 35 % of them were killed in an armed conflict. Therefore, the main danger for a journalist in such places is not necessarily the possibility to be killed but also other things should be considered such as injuries, torture, blackmail, kidnapping, rape, intimidation and others. There are also differences between journalists, according to their respective origins. Journalists from Iraq, for instance, have suffered the most, along with European journalists because they are the ones who mostly cover “dangerous” or “risky” countries

3.5 Providing proper training Coming to the conclusion that these journalists (and more specifically this new generation of journalists ) need a more advanced training to avoid these kind of mistakes from happening again, Raskin tried to provide training for them so that would not happen again. His training programs in Russia include for instance lessons on how to behave if the journalists are taken hostage, or what to do if they happen to be in the middle of a shooting, etc. He has been providing this training as an 26 experienced journalist working for more than 20 years in areas of conflict, such as in Tajikistan. Emphasizing the difference between Russia and the United States, (who let only special, military- trained journalists go to Afghanistan), Raskin tried to defend the crucial aspect of a systematic and suitable training for journalists sent to areas of conflict around the world. Raskin's training is aimed at fulfilling this objective by teaching new and to-be journalists some basic ground rules, and also delivering specific technical tips, such as how to protect themselves individually (by wearing a flak- vest, a helmet, having good insurance coverage, etc.). These aspects of training are held in conjunction with the International Committee of the Red Cross though. In addition Raskin also supports that dangerous conflict zones, like Syria nowadays, should not be covered by women and they should never be sent there. War journalism as a whole is “not a place for women”, according to Raskin. But although that is a personal opinion, as already mentioned before, in USSR and Russia, war journalism has always been regarded as a men’s job. Women only came into that field since the second Chechnya war.

3.6 The international recognition emblem One of the basic security rules for journalists in the field according to Raskin is always having some particular features so that they can be recognised as journalists. Currently, journalists make up their own rules on how to be recognisable when they work: they sometimes rent body guards, a practice which is risky because when they do so they cannot be distinguished from fighters or armed guards, and this can lead to violent reactions from some belligerents. Anastasia Kushleyko, ICRC Regional Legal Advisor in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, also supports the universal recognition of journalists, promoting the campaign to create a new international emblem adapted for the press, which would ensure respect for all journalists wearing it. By journalists not being easily recognizable, their murders have carried no consequences for the killers reflecting a message of permissiveness that Kushleyko contemns.

3.7 Losing the civilian status Another important issue regarding journalists’ protection consists their designated status. According to Kushleyko, the general protective measures for journalists are supposedly the same than for civilians, since a journalist is considered as a civilian provided that he/she does nothing that goes against this status, such as taking up arms or otherwise participating in a conflict. An often- asked question is to what extent attacks against journalists are seen as war crimes. Since journalists are protected as civilians, an attack against them is taken as seriously as an attack against civilians with regard to the law. A deliberate attack against civilians (whether they are journalists or not) is a war crime according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Thus, 27 Kushleyko argues whether the war correspondents’ status actually ensure a greater protection for journalists or not. According to the Third Convention of Geneva, only war correspondents can be treated as war prisoners. With regard to the differences between an embedded journalist and a freelance journalist, it is useful to recall what embedded journalism is: news reporters being attached to military units involved in armed conflicts. Thus, Kushleyko supports that as soon as he/she has an official authorisation delivered by the army, an embedded journalist is considered a war correspondent, while a freelance journalist has no particular status, and therefore his protection is linked to his civilian status.

3.8 The SAFE initiative On January 20th, 2015, took place another relative conference, in the United States this time, the Journalist Security Conference. The opening remarks were made by the Secretary of the State, John Kerry, according to whom although as a rule, it’s obviously not the responsibility, of government to step in and provide this kind of training, as journalists ought to be as independent from the public sector as possible, there are places where government can help. Concluding, Kerry introduced the State Department SAFE Initiative, a pilot project launched in 2013, in order to help local media workers in difficult regions and, thus far, it has reached some 300 working journalists. The SAFE initiative (Securing Access to Free Expression) introduces integrated safety trainings for journalists and media outlets. The project addresses safety through the lenses of digital identity, physical awareness, and psychosocial care for at-risk media practitioners. SAFE identifies journalists and media outlets in need of training, assists media practitioners who come under threat, builds support networks for journalists, creates channels to government where possible, and helps to connect the program to media freedom groups, human rights defenders, and multilateral organizations. SAFE's goal is to enable media practitioners to work as safely as possible by establishing resource centers that provide a holistic approach to journalists’ safety. Some of the project activities are to deliver integrated digital and physical safety trainings to journalists in Latin America, Africa, and Eurasia, operate a program-wide “hotline” system that offers 24/7 access to emergency assistance for journalists and establish regional security advisory networks to publicize the Journalist Security Resource Centers and promote media-community solidarity by uniting journalists around threats to their safety.

3.9 The revised US Law of War Manual Accept for the SAFE initiative, the United States also released a revised version of Law of War Manual, that has been already mentioned in Chapter one, that clearly deals with the protection of journalists in war zones, whether acting as embedded or not. Pentagon Deputy General Counsel 28 Chuck Allen, in a conference call prior to the revised manual's release, said: "The manual was restructured to make it be more clear… Journalists are civilians and are to be protected as such." The revised Law of War Manual includes these key passages: • "In general, journalists are civilians and are protected as such under the law of war." • "Journalists play a vital role in free societies and the rule of law and in providing information about armed conflict." • "Moreover, the proactive release of accurate information to domestic and international audiences has been viewed as consistent with the objectives of U.S. military operations." • "Department of Defense operates under the policy that open and independent reporting is the principal means of coverage of U.S. military operations." • "Engaging in journalism does not constitute taking a direct part in hostilities such that a person would be deprived of protection from being made the object of attack." • "Where possible, efforts should be made to distinguish between the activities of journalists and the activities of enemy forces, so that journalists' activities (e.g., meetings or other contacts with enemy personnel for journalistic purposes) do not result in a mistaken conclusion that a journalist is part of enemy forces."

Smyth, CPJ's security adviser, said: "The Law of War Manual's original language would have risked more journalist imprisonments by putting most of the burden on the journalist to avoid behavior that could be construed as a hostile act. The revised language seems to put more of the burden on military commanders to distinguish between the journalistic and enemy activities."

3.9.1 Losing the civilian status II The revised manual also deals with the status of journalists, as civilians or combatants. It states that journalists or people claiming to be journalists could lose their civilian status if they were to engage in hostile acts. "First, making the point that engaging in journalism does not constitute taking a direct part in hostilities such that a person would be deprived of protection from being made the object of attack clarifies that journalism as such is not a belligerent activity," said Associate General Counsel Karl Chang. The revised Law of War Manual also discusses the practice of journalists being embedded with U.S. military forces, and notes that journalists who are embedded with combatants are part of a unit that may be legitimately targeted by enemy forces and, if captured, may be afforded the privilege of being treated as a prisoner of war (POW). Under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, the rights of POWs include humane treatment, having their status as prisoners reported to a neutral body such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the expectation of release once hostilities end. The Pentagon distinguishes the rights 29 of POWs from those of "unprivileged belligerents," including spies, saboteurs, and guerrillas, who may be detained as criminal suspects, held indefinitely, and even legally executed, depending upon the laws of the country holding them.

30 CHAPTER FOUR Embedded Vs Independent’s Coverage

4.1 War Correspondent’s dilemmas In this insecure environment the dilemma between embedded journalism and independent coverage takes a different approach. Alongside the fighting on the ground, at sea, and in the air, a media war is fought over public opinion and the willingness to fight of populations and troops (Taylor 1997:119; cf. Thussu & Freedman 2003:7). As the media become protagonists in the information battleground, journalists are drawn into the conflict, voluntarily, under orders, or even unawares and the military tries to find the best way to gain a supportive coverage to its cause. Public support is considered to be crucial for any modern wars, and thus great efforts are made to get the public to accept and support their own side’s actions in the conflict. The new developments in media and communications technology, such as the satellite communications that makes possible 24/7 broadcasting of news so rapidly that it is possible to report live from a combat zone, resulted in media and journalists to have gained an increasingly central position in forming the public opinion. The unique power that the visual media have to influence, increases the propaganda pressure on journalists, and puts them, from a military point of view, into the centre of an additional branch of service. Warring parties are making ever greater efforts to influence, steer, and control the reporting distributed via international media, and this is especially true in the case of visual materials such as photographs and videos. (Nohrstedt, 2009) As Nohrstedt writes (Nohrstedt, 2009), commending on new war journalism, stories about armed conflicts, feuds, campaigns, great battles, glorified victories and crushing defeats have for millennia made up a considerable portion of popular culture. It is part and parcel of our cultural inheritance, and from childhood we have become accustomed to sharing the hardships and successes of heroes in our imagination. These stories possess an almost irresistible allure, tempting us to side with the good heroes in their fight against evil. One can view war propaganda as a continuation of these stories, though by other means. By appealing to already well-known narratives about the struggle between good and evil, we are persuaded to take a stand in the conflict. The outcome of the struggle for our sympathies and antipathies depends on which of the antagonists’ propaganda strategists best gains access to our attention and emotional engagement, i.e., how we as an audience identify with the different parties in the conflict. As in the banal nationalism described by Billig (1995), on the battlefield of war propaganda the contest is about identities, or, to put it differently, a discursive political process concerning which identity constructions will come to dominate the conflict at hand. With whom does the public feel sympathy and empathy? Which side does it trust and wish to support? Which leaders arouse public repudiation and contempt? Which 31 victims awaken compassion, while the sufferings of others are passed over in silence? It is these aspects of identification that are being fought over in the propaganda war. But also what We, the collective community addressed by war journalists, stand for in the war. Who are We, and how is this We positioned within the conflict? (Nohrstedt, 2009). “The very nature of war,” Kate Adie (1998) once observed, “confuses the role of the journalist” (1998: 44). Confronted with the often horrific realities of conflict, any belief that the journalist can remain distant, remote, or unaffected by what is happening “tends to go out the window” in a hurry. Nevertheless Adie, at the time the BBC’s chief news correspondent, offered no simple definition of what the role of the journalist should be “when faced with the consequences of battle and the muddle of war,” admitting instead that “I don’t have the answers, but I keep on asking questions” (Adie 1998: 54). More over, Kuypers & Cooper, comment on the power media have to influence, stressing on the framing journalist might use. Having already introduced the agenda setting, they comment that moving beyond studies of agenda setting, one finds that the news media also suggest how one should think. Kuypers (1997, 2002, 2005) called this agenda extension, and it occurs when the press moves beyond a neutral reporting of events. One manifestation of agenda extension is in the framing of news stories. A frame is “a central organizing idea for making sense of relevant events and suggesting what is at issue” (Gamson, 1989, p. 157). Facts remain neutral until framed; thus, how the press frames an issue or event will affect public understanding of that issue or event. On this point Gamson argued that facts “take on their meaning by being embedded in a frame or story line that organizes them and gives them coherence, selecting certain ones to emphasize while ignoring others” (p. 157). Framing thus elevates the salience of some facts over others. (Kuypers & Cooper, 2005) According to Kuypers & Cooper, although it can be argued that providing contextual cues for interpretation of events is a necessary part of reporting, when journalists infuse their political preferences into news stories the potential for manipulation of audience perceptions increases. This becomes especially important when one considers that a powerful feature of frames is that they define problems, causes, and solutions, although not necessarily in that order (Kuypers, 1997, 2002; Entman, 1993). In addition, they provide the journalist’s moral judgments concerning these problems, causes, and solutions (Kuypers, 2002, in press). In short, when journalists frame, they construct a particular point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted in a specific way. Thus journalists can, knowingly or unknowingly, guide the interpretation of readers toward a particular point of view. (Kuypers & Cooper, 2005)

32 4.2 Embedded journalism Embedded journalism is defined as the practice of placing journalists within and under the control of one side’s military during an armed conflict. Embedded reporters and photographers are attached to a specific military unit and permitted to accompany troops into combat zones. Having in mind the above mentioned opinions of Kuypers & Cooper about framing, we should try to find out whether embedded reporters coverage is being framed in advantage of the military they follow. While reporters directly involved in military action are believed to provide a more-incisive account of events by shedding the inevitable speculation that might surface by keeping the media at a distance, some view embedding more negatively, raising concerns in particular about bias in reporting. Even media organisations who participated in the embedding program described it as an attempt to present the U.S. side of the war in a sympathetic light by absorbing reporters into the culture of the military and tainting the objectivity that journalists are bound to uphold.(https://www.britannica.com/topic/embedded-journalism) Americans themselves seem to be conflicted about embedding. A survey by the PEW Research Centre for the People and the Press (2003) found that overall, 58% of Americans said embedded reporters “are a good thing.” Of the 34% who said it was “a bad thing,” most are worried that it is providing too much information that could help the enemy.

4.3 Being embedded with US Military Embedded journalism was introduced by the U.S. Department of Defense during the Iraq War (2003–11) as a strategic response to criticisms about the low level of access granted to reporters during the Persian Gulf War (1990–91) and the early years of the Afghanistan War (which began in 2001). Embedded reporters were offered an opportunity to accompany troops in the field. In an international project on media reporting from the Gulf War in seven countries, Nohrstedt will write “I had reason to conclude: War news is a discourse embedded in propaganda” (Nohrstedt 2001). However, in that war the embedding was limited to a small number of journalists who were part of the pool system organized by the military (Nohrstedt 1992). Prior to the 2003 Iraq War, 600 journalists underwent a hostile-environment training programme and were taught how to conduct themselves among the soldiers (Tumber & Palmer 2004). The primary motive was, the ambition to provide the media with potent material that would also be supportive the war propaganda. The US military made a good use of the lessons learned by experiences such as the Falklands War for example, which made obvious that correspondents sharing daily hardships with the soldiers, and who also depend on them for their safety, are most likely to also come to share the military’s perspective on the events. Correspondents become part of the psychological warfare and propaganda. The Pentagon’s strategy appears to have been 33 successful, even if not all the stories had the desired tendency. As an example, one embedded photographer filmed the wiping out of an entire Iraqi family. In any case, Fox News Channel in the US based much of its broadcasting on embedded reporting and achieved highly successful ratings with its patriotic message.

4.3.1 Iraq coverage comparative framing analysis A fruitful way to study frames is with comparative framing analysis (Kuypers, 1997, 2002; Entman, 1991). In order to find out the diff differences in war reporting between journalists embedded with combat units and journalists based behind-the-lines, Kuypers & Cooper run such an analysis on 2005. Embedded reporters were those who traveled with combat troops and essentially co-existed with a particular unit in the field. Behind-the-lines reporters were those reporters positioned away from the combat or even based in the USA. The stories they analyzed appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post. Their analysis discovered two prominent themes in coverage of the war: the strength of Iraqi army resistance and the response of the Iraqi civilian population to the Allied incursion, as well as significant difference in the framing during the coverage of the events. According to their study’s results, in what considers Iraqi Military Resistance, stories written by embedded reporters described Iraqi soldiers surrendering; Iraqi positions destroyed by artillery and aircraft attacks; Iraqi soldiers deserting; and Allied officers surprised by the weakness of Iraqi resistance. In contrast, stories written by behind-the-lines journalists featured Allied casualties and equipment losses; the potential for unconventional attacks by the Iraqi military; the ferocity of paramilitary or irregular Iraqi forces; the possibility of urban combat situations in cities such as Baghdad; and the belligerent rhetoric of Iraqi officials (Kuypers et al. 2005). Considering the Iraqi Civilian Response to the Allied Forces, the study has shown that early reporting, both from embedded reporters and behind-the-lines reporters, dealt mostly with combat operations, but a distinct theme of civilian response developed after the first week or so of fighting. In general, the reporting from behind-the-lines journalists featured collateral damage caused by combat; privations suffered by Iraqi civilians after combat passed through their areas; and resentment toward occupation troops. In contrast, reports from embedded journalists described positive interactions between Allied soldiers and Iraqi civilians; Allied efforts to restore basic utilities to the civilian population; Iraqi civilians’ fear of reprisals by Baath Party and Saddam Fedayeen members; and civilians celebrating the collapse of the Hussein regime. Kuypers & Cooper (Kuypers et al. 2005) concluded to the result that reporting about Operation Iraqi Freedom differed greatly between embedded and behind-the-lines reporters. The embedded journalists often described the war in terms of the weakness of Iraqi army resistance; the frequency with which regular Iraqi forces deserted or surrendered; and the joy of Iraqi civilians at 34 the demise of the Hussein regime. Their stories described the confusion and uncertainty of firefights; the tedium and fatigue inherent in warfare; the precise targeting of Allied ordinance; the pinpoint destruction such weapons produced; and friendly interactions between Allied soldiers and Iraqi civilians. Stories filed by behind-the-lines journalists described the war in terms of the potential of Iraqi forces to mount significant unconventional counterattacks; the ferocity of the Iraqi irregular forces; the inadequacy of Allied war planning; and the vulnerability of the Allies’ long supply lines. These stories emphasized civilian anger at collateral damage; interruptions to utility infrastructure; and mistrust of American intentions.

4.3.2 The cause of differences In part, these differences in framing can be attributed to the activities and conditions reporters could directly observe. Embedded journalists, traveling with combat forces, directly experienced the tedium, intensity, danger, and uncertainty of those situations; they observed first-hand the dominance of Allied tactics and weaponry, and the elation of Iraqi civilians as the Hussein regime disintegrated. on the other hand behind-the-lines journalists witnessed different aspects of the war. At a physical distance from the actual fighting, their stories concerned the uncertainty and unpredictability of the war’s course, the anarchy that sometimes developed when the control mechanisms of the Hussein regime collapsed, the potential--but not the actuality--for significant Iraqi military resistance and counterattacks, and the belligerent rhetoric of the Iraqi Minister of Information. It was not possible from the study to attribute the framing differences to military control over the reporting of the embedded reporters. The Department of Defense directive that established embedding as policy (U.S. Department of Defense, 2003) had specifically ruled out interference with reporters’ copy (paragraph 3.R), stating that the purpose of embedding was to maximize reporters’ access to information paragraph 2.A), and required that restrictions on the release of information in their possession had to be justified (paragraph 3.R). David Ignatius, journalist that has been embedded with the american forces, in an article for the Washington Post on Sunday, May 2, 2010 has written: “I've taken advantage of this chance to see the military up close. I have traveled to war zones with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; with Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander; and many others. I've spent weeks at a time visiting U.S. units in the field, hopping C-130s and Blackhawk helicopters and Humvees. As a result, I have seen more of Iraq and Afghanistan than I possibly could have otherwise, and I think my readers have benefited.” But he commented that “embedding comes at a price. We are observing these wars from just one perspective, not seeing them whole… I am usually inside an American military bubble. That vantage point has value, but it is hardly a full picture”. He 35 will also say that “Journalists gain access to information and talkative sources, but also inherit the distortions and biases that come with being "on the bus" or "on the plane….We can't understand what we don't see; we can't explain a conflict if we hear from only one side.” So according to Ignatius his stories as an embedded have been distorted and no matter what his intentions might have been, he could only have access to one side’s point of view, yet, even this coverage would be impossible for him, if he was not embedded. For his experience as unilateral he comments: “I covered the war as an unembedded or "unilateral" reporter, entering Iraq two days after the invasion with colleagues in rented SUVs. That experience taught me two things: First, it is too dangerous, in most cases, to cover modern warfare without protection from an army. Second, although my visits were brief, I was able to see things that the embedded journalists could not.” Finishing his article he writes: “As violence spread throughout Iraq in late 2003 and 2004, and as insurgents employed kidnapping as one of their weapons, it became all but impossible for Westerners to travel freely. To move anywhere outside central Baghdad, it was wise to embed.”

4.3.3 Practicing self censorship In addition, according to Tuosto 2009 study Journalists wary of audience and public opinion practice self-censorship, despite necessary militaristic regulations. This self-censorship is not only an inherent lack of objectivity, but also serves to create a fabricated version of reality (Tuosto, 2009). Ultimately, self-censorship creates a relativization of information as it distorts reality through the eyes of the reporter. Tuosto offers to war correspondent Gordon Dillow, who as an embedded, writes: “The discomforts and dangers of the war were easily dealt with; accurately conveying the reality of it to the readers back home was not.” Dillow continues to justify his lack of objectivity by rationalising, for example, that omitting the routine expletives of soldiers “was unavoidable” since “it wouldn’t fly in a family newspaper, neither would the constant jokes about sex and bodily functions.” While he concedes the point that his stories do not accurately convey reality, he claims, “I didn’t hide anything. For example, when some of my marines fired up a civilian vehicle that was bearing down on them, killing three unarmed Iraqi men, I reported it – but I didn’t lead my story with it, and I was careful to put it in the context of scared young men trying to protect themselves… and sweet-faced, all-American boys hardened by a war that wasn’t of their making.” Dillow’s strong connection with his soldiers, as well as his sense that “some things are simply too gruesome to describe in detail,” caused him to take liberties with censorship, writing only what he deemed necessary and proper for a family audience. The problem thus becomes an inherent lack of objectivity that is paradoxically disguised by Dillow’s openness and honesty with his reader: in admitting a lack of objectivity, Dillow gains credibility with his reader, who might then mistake his honesty for the truth value that his story actually lacks. Dillow’s obligation to 36 objectivity forces him to fabricate not necessarily a story, but a truth value, for the sake of catering to an audience that only wants to hear the censored “marine grunt truth.” This choice suggests that the portrayal of war is affected by a desire to shape the opinions of the American public: journalists’ self-censorship for the sake of catering to an audience skews the necessary reality of a story, making it subjective to and reliant on the people who, in reality, know nothing of the war itself. (Tuosto, 2009) In general, the embedding policy proved satisfactory to both the military and the press (Blumenthal & Rutenberg, 2003; Cooper, 2003; Fisher, 2003; Galloway, 2003; Mitchell & Bedway, 2003; Ricchiardi, 2003b; Rieder, 2003; Shooting at the Messenger, 2003; Zinsmeister, 2003). Moreover, returning journalists have not voiced complaints about their experiences while embedded, and many papers have continued with the practice (Arrieta-Walden, 2004). In sum, any notion that the copy of embedded reporters was censored by the military while that of behind-the- lines journalists was free from interference--and that the framing differences are attributable to the greater freedom of the behind-the-lines journalists--is not supported. (Tuosto, 2009)

4.4 Reporting the 2nd Chechnya War Having failed to dominate the news agenda during the first war in Chechnya, the Russian authorities applied flexible forms of constraints, inspired by western practices, and managed to minimise criticism of the second military campaign in Chechnya. Among them was the practice of embedded journalists, in order to make possible the control of the dissemination of information and stymie the emergence of alternative viewpoints.

4.4.1 Embedded with Russian military But being embedded in Chechnya had nothing to do with being embedded with another army. In Chechnya journalists are mainly located at two locations: the Russian military base in Khankala and the complex of buildings of the Moscow-backed Chechen government in Grozny. Without special permission they were restricted to these two places to produce their reports and they were also closely watched by the government. Any movement around Chechnya was possible only in the presence either of soldiers or officials, or as a part of some delegation. In order to prevent correspondents from gathering and reporting information that contradicted official statements about the fighting, the authorities tightly controlled journalists’ movement in Chechnya and imposed special accreditation requirements. But this time, the military campaign, began about the time that hundreds of people died in apartment bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities. Authorities blamed the attacks on Chechen rebels. Chechen extremists had adopted terrorism as a major style of warfare — alienating 37 the Chechen cause for independence among the public and making it difficult for activists to find any sympathy for Chechens whose rights are violated by military and security personnel in Chechnya. A strong mood of patriotism was widespread throughout Russia, a patriotism that also affected media reporting. An elite consensus reinforced the view in the journalists community(Belin, 2002). The virtually unanimous support for military action against Chechen separatists was all the more striking in light of the "information war" between rival political groups that was gaining momentum in the summer and autumn of 1999. That was the main reason that changed the journalists point of view during the 2nd Chechnya War, at least for the beginning of it. The few Russian journalists were reporting from battleground cities and villages largely explain the contrast between the early media coverage of the two wars. The hostage industry had not only alienated many journalists from the Chechen “liberation struggle” (Abdulaaev, 1999,), it had scared off even experienced correspondents who retained good Chechen contacts. For instance Valeriy Yakov's good contacts with Chechen field commanders helped him get closer to the action during the Pervomayskoe hostage crisis than any other journalist, but he was afraid to travel in Chechnya in the autumn of 1999. (Zolotov Jr, 1999). Abductions remained an ever-present risk; employees of the stationed ITAR-TASS news agency had been kidnapped in March and July 1999, and the second of those two victims (the photographer Vladimir Yatsina) remained in captivity when the second war broke out. (Belin, 2002) In the early months of the military campaign, most Russian media, including all major television networks, dwelled on the steady advance of the federal armed forces, the high morale among Russian soldiers, and the welcoming residents of the “liberated" areas (Belin, 2002). NTV's coverage of the "anti-terrorist operation" (in keeping with the official lexicon, not a war) could hardly have been more different from the editorial policy that put the network on the map during the first war. Like other television networks, NTV paid little attention to the civilian death toll, relying on battlefield footage showing "heavy guns firing, not where the shells hit” (Filipov, 1999). Moscow newspapers provided a broader spectrum of viewpoints about Chechnya in 1999, but only a handful of publications, such as Novaya gazeta and Obshchaya gazeta, questioned the wisdom or morality of the Russian military strategy. Some newspapers that had been hostile toward the armed forces during the first war now concentrated on the same upbeat themes that dominated television newscasts. Destroyed Chechen towns and the wave of refugees fleeing the republic received far less column space (Zolotov, 1999). When Russian-launched rockets killed dozens of civilians in a Grozny marketplace in October, major news agencies all reported the attack. However, Russian television networks did not show the carnage (Thomas de Waal, 2001) and the next morning, the daily Vremya-MN was "virtually alone among Russian newspapers" in covering the story (Bivens, 1999). Unlike most 38 Moscow-based newspapers, Vremya- MN had a reporter working in Grozny, and she had been in the marketplace at the time of the attack. Other Russian media came to the story late, and when they did, many gave credence to unsubstantiated official claims that the market was an "arms bazaar” and that the explosion was either an accident or staged deliberately by Chechens. As that incident illustrates, Russian journalists generally gave official pronouncements the benefit of the doubt when reporting unconfirmed information related to the second Chechen war. For example, very few media challenged statements blaming Chechen terrorists for the blasts that leveled apartment blocks in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, even though law enforcement agencies produced no evidence to support the allegation. Novaya gazeta and Obshchaya gazeta, once more, were among the few newspapers to question that rush to judgment. Even more revealing, on several occasions in 1999 Russian media, including private newspapers and television networks, ignored evidence that contradicted official reports about "terrorists" eliminated with minimal Russian military losses. Stringers working for Russian television networks "didn't want anything to do with" footage filmed by a Chechen cameraman showing the civilian victims of a direct hit on two buses filled with refugees. Russian newscasts that evening reported a successful attack on two busloads of terrorists, as Russian military sources claimed (Niyat, 2001). Why did such self-censorship flourish in coverage of the second Chechen war? Some analysts have suggested that journalists were afraid to alienate their readers and viewers, since opinion polls showed widespread antipathy toward Chechens and support for the war. That would be an amazing reversal of the "fourth estate" notion that journalists should educate and enlighten their audience. During the first war, the chairman of state-owned RTR had defended his network's negative Chechnya coverage, saying journalists had a duty to point out the authorities' mistakes. In 1999, the RTR chairman characterized his network's coverage as being about "returning the feeling of victory to the army.” A veteran Moscow-based foreign correspondent observed in October 1999 that many of his Russian colleagues "seem content to be little more than megaphones for the official line.” The satisfaction was mutual: one Russian general commented, "This time we are getting more help and less trouble from journalists” (Belin, 2002). Nikolai Starodymov, answering to PIPSS question about censorship in Chechnya, says: “I was not troubled in Chechnya. We were allowed to write about the dead, the wounded. Sometimes they would ask to shorten an article, but I was never summoned. The second campaign was better organized. …Information was blocked for civilian journalists. In contrast to them, we got information from the top. Some newspapers revealed crucial tactical information.” Olga Allenova, an embedded journalist in the base of Mozdok, describes in her book how she changed her stance from supporting the “restoring order” in Chechnya as she saw the violence 39 this entailed. She describes her growing awareness of the criminal abuses of the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya. Olga Allenova’s book on Chechnya was published in 2008, contains personal testimony and insights into the world of Russian war journalism. She writes how Putin’s speech on a military base in Mozdok in October 1999 convinced her that he was the right man for the job… until she progressively realized that armed forces bombed and killed those they were supposed to save. Allenova describes the work of journalists in the military base in Mozdok in the winter of 1999-2000. TV journalists are taken aboard a helicopter to film the troops on the battlefield, while their colleagues long for such an opportunity. Meanwhile, those left behind drink vodka with the military press-center. Though an embedded journalist, Allenova does not fear to write about the violence exerted by the Russian military, and the hatred that the Armed Forces provoke by their actions. When Chechen insurgents surrendered in March 2000 in Komsomolskoe, she reports that they were badly treated and beaten. Her depictions, of course, do not focus on human rights violations nor are they as thorough and systematic as human right reports. In her book she also speaks for her journalist ethics, however, that she realises the privileged insider’s perspective she owes to her status as embedded journalist and does not deny nor downplay the violence exerted by the armed forces with whom she works. Her article on filtration camps in April 2001, for instance, mentions that during the military operations all journalists lived in Khankala and knew perfectly well how the prisoners were treated and that they were detained in pits. Though sometimes, we have to read between the lines to get the real scale of violence, devastation or hope, her articles are always balanced, full of humanity and honesty. Yuri Tutov, one of the most well known war photojournalist in Russia, in his email interview for the PIPSS on 20th Oct 2014, reveals how he began to work with international press agencies, distancing himself from the interior ministry’s media, where he has been working until then. Asked about censorship he answered that there was no censorship in Chechnya officially, saying also that there was no way to stop him from taking photos.

4.4.2 Other voices Of course, there were some independent journalists reporting from another point of view, especially from international media. A Moscow correspondent for the French newspaper, Libération, Anne Niyat speaks about covering the war in Chechnya: “My choice was not to cover this war under the control of the Russian military. Almost as soon as ... after the war started, the Russian military launched sort of “organized tours” of Chechnya for journalists. And I had never wanted to be part of that because I knew I had the possibility to do differently, even though of course it was much more dangerous. But I thought that it was my duty not to allow myself to be under their control. 40 The situation has deteriorated in the last year in Chechnya. There are no jobs for the people. The money, supposedly money coming from Moscow for repairing buildings, infrastructure, etc., has not arrived, or has been, you know, stolen in between, but I haven’t seen any sign of any repair of, you know, the capital Grozny and I’m not even talking about villages. So no jobs, no infrastructure, no normalization, and fear everywhere, which is worse, much worse, than a year ago. So I managed to enter the village two days after it had ended, this awful “Zachistka”; (“cleaning-up operation”), and I will never forget this woman, a mother of six, three daughters, three sons, who told me that ... Well she had lost her three sons, 15, 13, and 11 year old. They just happened to be “in the way,” you know, when the Russians entered her house. They were just playing in front of the house. And she never saw them again. They took them away, and killed them. They killed them, and I saw the bodies, I saw the bodies. The bodies were ... and all the bodies all put together in a hole, you know, in the neighbourhood of the village. And that’s what is this war in Chechnya about now. That’s about that kind of daily killing, killing innocent people.” But there was a major effort to mute these journalists. On October 1999 in order to eliminate independent journalism about Chechnya the military also opened a government briefing center. Some critical journalists were even detained by the government. Andrei Babitsky was one of the victims. A Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent, he was detained in January 2000. He was widely known for challenging the Kremlin’s restrictions on Chechen war coverage. Nevertheless, his activities were regarded by Russian authorities as treason. He was accused of as conspiracy with Chechen terrorists just because he reported from Chechen side. His case was not an isolated one. On January 17, 2000, the Police apprehended Alexander Khinshtein, a Moskovesky Komsomolets (Komsomol of Moscow) journalist, who had published critical articles on the Chechen War. They attempted to take him to a psychiatric clinic outside of Moscow. Their treatments sent a message to other Russian journalists that those who challenged the authorities could expect to be branded as “enemies of the state.” On October 9, 2001, Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist specializing in the Chechen problem for Novoya Gazeta, announced that she was forced into leaving Moscow for Vienna, Austria, following death threats because of her reporting, in particular an article talking about the fact that a military helicopter with General Anatoli Psdniakov on board was shot down on September 17, 2001.

41 CHAPTER FIVE Findings and Discussion

5.1 A common start This study begun with a retrospect of the relation and the differences among the methods used by both military parties was, before the beginning of the cold war and how it evolved to the nowadays situation, beginning from the Second World War (WWII), the time when, by all measures, war reporting came of age, the period between 1939 and 1945. It does not come as a surprise the fact that in the early years of war reporting, the WWII, we come across a large number of similarities on the war reporting from the countries press. First of all, both have already understood the importance of the supportive coverage in gaining and maintaining public support. So a large number of assets is dedicated on getting feedback from the battlefields, creating stories and presenting a positive picture of the operations, such as the american Stars and Stripes magazine and the soviet Red Star newspaper. Another similarity is that there is a very clear patriotism depicted in the reports of both sides reporters. On the one hand for the Soviets, the Crimean War is seen as the first conflict that created for the Soviets the discussion of the “sacred war” concept. The 11-month defence of Sebastopol was seen as a symbol for that “new Russian identity” at that time. It has been the event that triggered major reforms in the judiciary and administrative fields as well as among the press. As a new collective identity centred around the sacred grave of Sebastopol, the coverage of the war in general created a standard in combat journalism. Journalists reported about war with an epic, heroic tone constantly implying the idea of a “sacred war”. The general idea of “dying for the sake of the tsar” was glorified (Pavlengo, 2014). On the other hand, as Howard Tumber and Frank Webster write, it is often observed that the United States evidences significantly more patriotism than other nations. Americans are prouder of their country than the rest of us are of our own. Large majorities affirm this regularly in opinion polls, very many fly the Stars and Stripes outside their homes, and they pledge allegiance to the USA daily in their schools. Patriotism has been encouraged by American involvement in war. Thus the USA patriotism emerged from the Second World War suffused with the glow of victory, warmed by its having sustained relatively few human losses in that battle, and enjoying a booming economy that grew at about 10 percent each year and left the Depression a distant memory. Patriotic cohesion was consolidated by participation in this major conflict that Americans widely perceived to have been successful because of their timely entrance (Tumber & Webster, 2006). In addition both the american and soviet journalists used similar themes in their reporting. Mauldin characters “Willie and Joe” depict grizzled, dog-faced soldiers who retain the will to fight 42 but who have grown weary of the numbing routine of cold, hunger, and the bureaucratic mindlessness of the army. As Mauldin wrote, they were men “who are able to fight a ruthless war against ruthless enemies, and still grin at themselves.” Friendship, masculinity, successes in the battlefield are highlighted by him, as well as the rest of american reporters, in the same way that their soviet colleagues do. Moreover they both use reporters “embedded” with the military at the first lines in order to get a story. The difference here is that while the soviets have all been military men, fully integrated in their own units, most of the americans have been civilian journalists, wearing military clothes, such as the Murrey’s Boys, embedded not necessarily with US army, as the american joined the war very late. But, finally there is another very significant difference between american and soviet coverage during WWII. The soviets where covering a war that they where really fighting, against the threat to the freedom and independence of their own country, while americans at least for the most of the war where covering a war that they did not yet participate. Soviets had to deal with foreign correspondents also, while that would not be an issue for the US. For an american journalist “an assignment to Russia was a shot at adventure; a chance to witness firsthand the largest military front in human history”, as Bill Downs, a US correspondent in Moscow, writes in one of his articles. So Moscow, had at this time to take measures to regulate its relationship with those foreign correspondents.

5.2 Different paths – Ending up on similar policies In the wars that followed the next years, both sides, americans and soviets - russians, tried different practices to control the information spread by the media, that has not always been successful. In many cases those practices presented common elements, such as the strict restrictions over the media in the Afghanistan war for the soviets and the Granada invasion for the americans. Wrong media policies taught them both tough lessons. The failure to regulate the relation with the media and implement a media policy in Vietnam cost americans the loss of the war. Similarly, giving to much freedom in the press during the first Chechnya war, while at the same time not providing accurate and timely information by the military, resulted in an “information Waterloo”, that cost the war for the russians too. Those lessons learned by both sides leaded them both in adopting certain media policies in their future operations in order to be able to control the dissemination of the information to the public. The last two wars where those developed media polices have been implemented were the Iraq war for the americans and the 2nd Chechnya war for the russians. Examining those policies we 43 can easily see that Moscow has adopted in large western policies used in the Gulf war by the americans and other westerns. At the same time the US military will move on and turn to the practice of embedding journalists with combat units, that has been a significant change in Department of Defense media policy (Cooper, 2003). Embedding replaced the pool coverage used in the Persian Gulf War, which had prompted complaints from news outlets and organisations about restricted access to the combat theatre. Journalists covering the 2003 Iraq War also had the option of being credentialed as “unilateral,” which meant they were not affiliated with a particular combat unit, but did not enjoy the logistical support, physical protection, or immediate access to operations provided to the embedded journalists. Some journalists chose to cover the war as unilaterals (Fisher, 2003; Ricchiardi, 2003a). The Russians also used embedded journalism, but there have been significant difference with the ones used by the US military. The ones embedded with the US followed their units in their missions, while the ones with the Russian army would be stuck in one of the information centres, relying on the army for any information, while they regularly had the chance to go on “a trip” with Russian troops in certain places of interest - a tactic very close to the one that soviets used for the international correspondents in Moscow since WWII. Even more, in certain cases, only journalists working for military media where allowed on the scene. Thus, Russian embedded journalist coverage would be according to the military agenda. Embedded journalists where not welcome at first neither by the Russian or the American soldiers. Raskin during his speech during the International Round Table on War Journalism, Moscow, 15 April 2014 mentioned the experience he had, in his work with soldiers who were based in Chechnya during the war. In talking to the soldiers, he found out that they truly hated journalists because journalists were believed to have distorted information and caused the soldiers to take unnecessary risks with their lives. However, he highlighted another trend in the military shows that these old prejudices are evolving, and that soldiers are accepting more easily the presence of journalists and use of certain journalism tools. For example, a few years ago soldiers categorically forbid the use of satellite phones, while nowadays they understand their true necessity, and have even begun to use this type of phone themselves. From the American side, Dillow’s article, while writing about his own experience, provides a unique, secondhand account of the initial skepticism his marine grunts held for embedded reporters: “They had been warned about us, I found out later. Be careful what you say to them, the Marines of Alpha Company were told before we joined them in early March…Don’t [complain] about the slow mail delivery, don’t criticize the anti-war protesters back home, don’t discuss 44 operational plans, and for God’s sake, don’t use ethnic slur words for Arabs. Better yet, don’t talk to the reporters at all. They’ll just stab you in the back.” To Dillow’s surprise, the marine grunts not only saw embeds as an annoyance and an additional man to cover, but were initially suspicious of Dillow’s loyalties. After getting to know the men of his unit, Dillow explains that “they realised that we weren’t using our Iridium cell phones to alert the Iraqi army high command to the Marine’s next move.” Subsequently, Dillow was able to develop both trust and camaraderie with his soldiers. Eventually, the soldiers’ initial mistrust grew into a desire to have their stories told accurately and affectionately to their loved ones at home (Tuosto, 2009) In both cases, the practice of embedded journalism seemed to have served well, both US and Russia military. A significant role on that played the self censorship practiced by them. That self censorship can be attributed in many different reasons, that have already been mentioned, which are not necessarily the same for american and russian journalists.

5.2.1 Self censorship Why did such self-censorship flourish in coverage of those wars? Some analysts have suggested that journalists reporting second Chechen war were afraid to alienate their readers and viewers, since opinion polls showed widespread antipathy toward Chechens and support for the war. That would be an amazing reversal of the "fourth estate" notion that journalists should educate and enlighten their audience. (Belin, 2002) On the other side, Kylie Tuosto (2009) writes: “Journalism is not simply investigative reporting for the sake of finding truth; it is a capitalist enterprise with a market and consumers to which it must cater. In other words, a reporter will alter content and rhetoric based on a newspaper, magazine, or television station’s audience,in order to best serve that audience’s needs. In war correspondence then, considering the audience means that a journalist will inevitably censor the reality of war at his discretion. War correspondence is particularly conducive to censorship not only because it exposes the predominantly naïve American public to the brutality and ruthlessness of war, but also because the families of soldiers have a right to learn of their loved one’s death in a respectful, tactful, and formal way. These pressures mean that embeds not only practice self-censorship, but also receive limited information and are denied intimate details for the sake of secrecy and military strategy.” So, answering to the study’s first research question, what are really the differences between the framing of an American embedded journalist and a Russian military journalist and what are the similarities, the study has shown more similarities than differences. The main difference has to do with the access journalists have one the events and how this affects their reporting. Otherwise both 45 american and russian are motivated from the same journalistic passion to cover the news, but also apply similar self - censorship on their coverage.

5.2.2 Effort to control independents Another significant asset used by both militaries was the media information centre, which by releasing first, timely and accurate information helped in disseminating the news in the advantage of the military. The unfortunate use of such information centre during the 1st Chechen war, that did not provide credible information, while at the same time the release of the news was delayed, was proved to have a boomerang effect, as journalists had to base their reports on different sources. A significant problem for the military information campaign, even after the use of the embedded reporters, has remained the existence of independent or “unilateral” journalists, trying to offer coverage from both sides. In most of the cases their reports defer from the ones provided by the embedded ones, showing a different “true face” of the war. That in the case of Iraq could be emphasising civilian anger at collateral damage, interruptions to utility infrastructure, and mistrust of American intentions, while for the 2nd Chechen war emphasising atrocities of russian army and collateral damages. From the US side, in separate incidents, at least three different Western reporters were fired or disciplined due to their actions in covering the war. In addition During the Iraq war, the U.S. detained many journalists precisely for their alleged contacts for journalistic purposes with enemy forces, according to Committee of Protection for Journalists research, while others were held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Ignatius, in his article writes: “This counter-embedding was dangerous, to put to mildly. The most graphic evidence is the horrifying footage of a U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad in 2007, posted recently by WikiLeaks, which shows the deaths of a Reuters camera crew and about 10 others.” Ironically this incident makes true U.S. Rear Admiral Joseph Metcalf warnings before the Granada invasion: "Any of you guys coming in on press boats? Well, I know how to stop those press boats. We've been shooting at them. We haven't sunk any yet, but who are we to know who's on them?” But once again, the above mentioned practices by the american military does resemble to the Russian restrictions applied on the independent journalists, although in Chechnya those measures have been much more strict, causing many of the journalists to quit trying reporting as independents. Many of them have said that it has been impossible to work there. But we should also have in mind that the war in Chechnya has been a completely different war than the one americans fought in Iraq, something that excuses the strict media policies used by the Russian military. In many cases though, cases of murders, murder attempts or kidnaping of journalists have been reported in Russia.

46 5.3 Risking to ensure two sided coverage. Being non - embedded thus, comes at a prize. Journalism as already stressed in the third chapter of this study is indeed a very dangerous profession. Embedding arose because American journalists requested it. During the Persian Gulf War, many reporters were stuck covering the action from the rear in Dhahran or Riyadh. It was just too dangerous to get into the frontline by themselves. A large number of non-embedded journalists and media professionals—the overwhelming majority of whom were Iraqi—were killed during the Iraq War, either in combat or as the result of targeted assassinations. It is true that in both US and Russia policies the used of embedded journalism have been proven to be successful. Yet, there is a long discourse about wether being embedded is a decent way of covering a conflict or it strictly provides one-sided coverage of the events. Kuypers & Cooper write that although they could not conclusively demonstrate this to be the case, they strongly feel it likely that behind-the-lines reporters were less able than embedded reporters to divorce themselves from the editorial positions of their respective papers, and the general climate of media opposition concerning military action. After all, while embedded reporters were relaying their eye-witness testimony, behind-the-lines reporters relied on second hand accounts filtered through their preconceptions concerning the outcome of the war (Kuypers, 2002). So, their study concluded that the power of the behind-the-lines reporters’ established frames greatly influenced how they reported the war, whereas embedded reporters, observing direct contradictions of their previously established frames, were in a better position to report on what they actually witnessed(Kuypers & Cooper 2005). Although embedded reporters presented a much more positive view of US military actions and possibilities than did their behind-the-lines counterparts, in some sense, then, this presented audiences with a choice on how to view the war. Even in Chechnya, as Alenova writes in her book, that though as an embedded journalist, she does not fear to write about the violence exerted by the Russian military, and the hatred that the Armed Forces provoke by their actions. Answering the second research question of our study, embedded journalism is not a way to control - frame information but it does provide positive coverage, through its primary intent that is 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.” At the same time, taking in account the dangers in a modern battlefield, already stressed in chapter 3, as well as the important role of the media in a modern war, it is a situation that does give a journalist the unique opportunity to be in the frontline, under an as safe as possible environment, being able to eyewitness the facts.

47 5.4 Nowadays Policies The third and last research question of the study concerns whether or not have the approaches used by both US and Russia military come to the same outcome, in order to adapt to the new environment, as military - media relationship is now imposimple to be controlled due to the evolvement in communications and new media-new forms of journalism. In the above mentioned comparison of media policies adopted by the two countries’ militaries, we should also highlight that while the Russian media policy targets as audience mainly its own citizens, the US media policy although it cares mostly about gaining the support of its own population it also targets as an audience the international community. That is a basic difference between the two countries’ approaches. In addition Russia has adopted and customised the western media policies in order to best fit to its needs. So, there are not so many differences typically, but the very tight restrictions it applies in practice have the ability to almost totally mute the voices of any independent media. But the most important difference between the Russian and American approaches is the Nationalism adopted by the Russian media policy towards the Professionalism - but having nationalism already for granted - that is promoted by the American policies, especially taking in account the recent review of the Law of War Manual by the US DoD. When Putin came to power in 2000, one of his successes is having quietly and steadily gained control of the entire media. After the fights with anti-Putin oligarchs, the main conflicts, faced by Russian current media, lie between the media nationalisation and the media professionalisation. The “nationalization” is known as public ownership or the act of taking private assets into government or state ownership. Media nationalisation insists on the unparalleled leading role of government in media reform. This idea was exactly what Putin promoted in his media policy (Belin, 2002). In looking at Putin’s media policies, he has made a pro-nationalisation shift, although by re-employing journalists and editors that are representatives of the Russian media professionals imply that Putin attempted to accomplish the goal to establish his own empire under the camouflage of media professionalisation (Belin, 2002). On the contrary, the media professionalisation, the media policy that the US has adopted, emphasises on the self- independence and media freedom. Professionalisation makes the media more independent and improves standards in collecting, editing, reporting and disseminating objective and balanced information. But also US government does retain a significant capacity of control over the media, while at the same time t is often the United States evidences significantly more patriotism than other nations(Tumber & Webster, 2006). So, in any case, the conflict between the media nationalisation and the media professionalisation is apparent and also cannot be reconciled.

48

Conclusions War has always been highly newsworthy. Depictions of the course of wars, of victories and defeats, are very dramatic and affect the fates of many people – in some cases almost the entire world. War news attracts a large audience and often deeply engages people both emotionally and intellectually. Public opinion is mobilised to an extent that otherwise has no counterpart even in the established democracies (Gitlin & Hallin 1994). This paper was concerned with comparing the USA and Russian military approach to the media and war reporting. Through a retrospect, the cooperative analysis of the relationship between American and Russian military and media, as well as the changes that occurred since the end of WWII, have revealed significant similarities as well as differences in the two superpowers’ policies in their effort to control dissemination of information and shape media coverage to their favour. They seem to have both a similar start, as during the WWII they both showed significant understanding of the effect the war coverage would have on the population support. Trying different policies through time, in their last officially declared wars, they used similar policies that simnifically differed one from the other when it comes to practice. In what concerns the practice of embedded journalism, the access Russian embedded journalists had to events was far more restricted than the ones being in the front line with the US army. That resulted in relying to the Russian information centres for their reporting of the war in Chechnya. But we should not neglect that Russian journalists were motivated from the same journalistic passion to cover the news as the americans. Surprisingly both US and Russian embedded journalists applied similar self - censorship on their coverage, in favour of their military. So, although embedded journalism is not suppose to be a way to control - frame information it does provide positive coverage. At the same time, taking in account the dangers in a modern battlefield, as well as the important role of the media in a modern war, it is a situation that does give a journalist the unique opportunity to be in the frontline, under the protection of the military, being able to eyewitness the facts. Moreover concerning whether or not have the approaches used by both US and Russia military come to the same outcome, in order to adapt to the new environment, as military - media relationship is now imposimple to be controlled due to the evolvement in communications and new media-new forms of journalism, we should highlight that while the Russian media policy targets as audience mainly its own or regional area citizens, the US media policy, although it cares most about gaining the support of its own population, it also targets as an audience the international community. That is a basic difference between the two country’s approach. But Russia has adopted and customised the western media policies in order to best fit to its needs with the most important difference between the Russian and American approaches is the Nationalism adopted by the 49 Russian media policy towards the Professionalism that is promoted by the American policies, especially taking in account the recent review of the Law of War Manual by the US Department of Defence. But also US government does retain a significant capacity of control over the media, while at the same time the United States evidences significantly more patriotism than other nations (Tumber & Webster, 2006). In addition the fact that Russians have been more strict on their attempts to deter media from presenting the viewpoints of Chechen leaders, are in most of the cases justified, as for them this has been a war against terrorists. In any case, US and Russia have achieved during the last wars to gain a positive coverage by the media. After even certain failures, such as Vietnam or the 1st Chechnya Wars, both have developed similar successful media policies, customised to best fit their objectives and target audiences, to ensure gaining and maintaining population support; policies that are active even now, in places like Ukraine and the eastern borders of Europe with Russia, where new media breath life into another, unprecedented kind of Cold War that is now raging.

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Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941. New York: Knopf, 1941. 25. Tobin, James. Ernie Pyle’s War: America’s Eyewitness to World War II. New York: Free Press, 1997. 26. Internet Resource: European and Pacific Stars and Stripes. Available from 27. Hamilton, Jim (1999). The Writing 69th: Civilian war correspondents accompany a U.S. bombing raid on Germany during World War II. Green Harbor Publications. p. 172. ISBN 0971721106. Retrieved December 25, 2014. 28. The 'Murrow Boys' - a group of foreign correspondents during World War II: http://dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/murrow/exhibit/boys.html 29. “War Reporting & Technology,” Newseum. (accessed 2 May 2008). 30. MacArthur, John R. Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992) 31. O'Shaughnessy, Hugh. Grenada (NY: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1984) 32. Moore, Frazier. "New Tools Showed Gulf War on TV”. http://chotank.com/frazmoore.html 33. “Television: The Persian Gulf War”. 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The Press and Public Misperceptions About the Iraq War http://niemanreports.org/articles/the-press-and-public-misperceptions-about-the-iraq-war/ 41. Schifferes, Steve (2003-04-18). "Who won the US media war?". BBC. Retrieved 2008-01- 21 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2959833.stm 42. "Just fired, Peter Arnett hired by British paper". CNN. 2003-04-01. Retrieved 2008-01-21 43. "Manipulating Truth, Losing Credibility". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-01-21 44. Deans, Jason (2003-03-21). "Rivera gets army boot out of Iraq". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-01-21. 45. Crimea’s Legacy: Balaclavas, war correspondents and Anglo-Russian rivalry 46. SOVIET WRITERS AT WAR! Reports, articles, sketches, stories, propaganda, and more from the period of the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945 47. Sophie Momzikoff, « The Military Journal Zarubezhnoe Voennoe Obozrenie Under Perestroika (1985-1991) », The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies [Online], Issue 16 | 2014, Online since 05 December 2014, connection on 12 September 2016. URL : http://pipss.revues.org/4092 48. R.P. Osveyan, Istoriia noveishei otetchestvennoy zhurnalistiki, Izdatel’stvo MGU, Moscow, 1990. 49. S.I. Zukov, Frontovaia petshat’ v gody velikoi Otetshestvennoi voiny, Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1968, p.6. 50. M. Harisson, “Secrets, Lies, and Half Truths: The Decision to Disclose Soviet Defense Outlays”, PERSA Working Paper # 55, version 26 September 2008, http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/harrison/archive/persa/055.pdf 51. K.M. Golovanov, Matrossy Narkomprossa, Moscow, Molodaia Gvardia, 1974. 52. http://www.baltinfo.ru/2011/02/11/Skonchalsya-predstavitel-press-sluzhby-GU-MChS-po- Peterburgu-Andrei-Alyabev-187700. 53 53. A. Kozlov, Sovetskaia voennaia zhurnalistika v 1945-1991 gg, Moscow, Military University of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, PhD, 2009; A. Kozlov, “Voennaia zhurnalistika...", op. cit., 2009. 54. Th. Malleret, M. Delaporte, op; cit., p. 64, 1985 55. Ivan Zasurskiy, Mass-Media vtoroy respubliki, Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo Univerziteta, 1999, p. 93 56. Ellis, From Glasnost to the Internet, 1999, p. 121. 57. Mickiewicz, Changing Channels, p. 10. 58. Valeriy Yakov, quoted in Michael R. Gordon, "Russia Copies NATO in War to Win Minds," New York Times, 28 November 1999. 59. Yassen Zassoursky, "Media and the Public Interest: Balancing Between the State, Business and the Public Sphere," in Kaarle Nordenstreng, Elena Vartanova and Yassen Zassoursky, eds., Russian Media Challenge, Helsinki: Kikimora Publications, 2001, p. 161. 60. Anna Dolgov, "Russian Press Plays Role in Chechnya," Associated Press, 14 October 1999. 61. Andrei Zolotov Jr., "Kremlin Scores Strategic Victory in Chechnya--Over the Media," Institute for War & Peace Reporting Caucasus Reporting Service, no. 5, distributed on the fsumedia e-mail list on 9 November 1999. 62. ITAR-TASS 24 September 1999. This is the text which appears in the translated version of Sergey Kovalev’s essay “Putin’s War” New York Review of Books, 10 February 2000. 63. Rick Fawn and Stephen White, Russia after Communism,( Great Britain: Antony Rowe Ltd., 2002) 152 64. Ilya Maksakov, “Russian Journalists in Second Chechnya War,” trans. Prague Watchdog, 12 September 2002< http://www.watchdog.cz/index.php?show=000000-000003-000002- 000016&lang=2> 65. Monroe E. Price, Andrei Richter, and Peter K. Yu, “A Brief Chronology of Russian Media Law and Policy During the Yeltsin Years,” Russian Media Law and Policy in the Yeltsin Decade: Essays and Documents, (N.P.: Kluwer Law International, 2002) 308-309 66. Emma Gray, “Putin’s Media War,” CPJ Press Freedom Report, 27 March 2000 67. Françoise Daucé, « Military Journalists and War Correspondents From The USSR To Russia: Subjectivity Under Fire », The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies [Online], Issue 16 | 2014, Online since , connection on 12 September 2016. URL : http://pipss.revues.org/4121 54 68. Nabi Abdulaaev, "Moscow Tightly Controls Information on the Chechen Conflict," Jamestown Foundation Prism, December 1999, no. 20, part 1. 69. David Filipov, "Moscow Launches Video Offensive Seeking Support for Chechnya War," Boston Globe, 17 October 1999. 70. Thomas de Waal, "Introduction," in Anna Politkovskaya, A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya, London: The Harvill Press, 2001, p. xxx. 71. The best account of Russian reports on that rocket attack is Matt Bivens, "Grozny's Blast Gets Odd TV Coverage," Moscow Times, 23 October 1999. 72. Anne Nivat, Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Reporter Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya, New York: Public Affairs, 2001 73. De Waal, "Introduction," in Politkovskaya, A Dirty War, p. xxvi. Andrey Kortunov, director of the Moscow Scientific Fund, made similar comments in Fred Weir, "The Story Russians Don't See in Chechnya," Christian Science Monitor, 26 October 1999. 74. Ian Traynor, "Moscow's Media War Flags on Home Front," The Guardian, 11 November 1999. 75. Michael R. Gordon, "Russia Copies NATO in War to Win Minds," New York Times, 28 November 1999.