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Embedded and Unilateral Journalists

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Embedded and Unilateral Journalists Running head: JOURNALISTS’ ACCESS TO SOURCES 1 Embedded and Unilateral Journalists: How their Access to Sources Affected their Framing During the 2003 Iraq War Courtney Huck Wittenberg University JOURNALISTS’ ACCESS TO SOURCES 2 Abstract With the 2003 United States’ led invasion of Iraq, the Department of Defense created an embedded war correspondent program that had never been used to such a broad extent by the U.S previously. Immediately, critics of the program claimed that embedded journalists would have a personal bias because of their continuous interactions with the soldiers, and, as a result, critics claimed that stories from embedded journalists would only present the Unites States in a positive light. This study examines articles from two embedded journalists and two non- embedded (unilateral) journalists throughout the first four months of the invasion (March 20, 2003-July 31, 2003). Through examination of the articles that emerged during the chosen time- period, findings show that embedded and unilateral journalists’ access to specific kinds of sources during different periods of the invasion greatly shaped the direction of their stories. JOURNALISTS’ ACCESS TO SOURCES 3 Embedded and Unilateral Journalists: How their Access to Sources Affected their Framing During the 2003 Iraq War Introduction This project originated as a way to tie together components of communication, history, and journalism. I’ve always been extremely interested in how historical events are perceived by the public based on the way the media decides to frame a story. For this reason, both embedded and unilateral journalists’ articles were examined during the first four months of the United States’ 2003 Iraq War (March 20, 2003-July 31, 2003). This was done to discover if one group of journalists had a more positive viewpoint on the war in their articles than the other group. For the purpose of this study, positivity refers to journalists presenting the U.S government or the U.S military’s actions in a way that highlights only successes or applauds actions. Negativity refers to journalists framing an article in a way that does not highlight the United States’ successes or applaud the United States’ actions. Embedded and unilateral journalists’ articles were viewed separately to determine if personal bias was a main factor in shaping the embedded journalists’ stories. However, I will argue throughout the course of this essay that the two groups of journalists had access to certain types of sources based on each journalist’s location. Therefore, framing of a story or an event became based on this access to sources, rather than from a personal bias based off of a journalist’s relationship with U.S soldiers. Background for U.S. Media Involvement in War Over the years there has been a shift in how the United States government allows media to cover foreign conflicts. During the Vietnam War, censorship was almost nonexistent and journalists were only restricted from reporting on classified material (Keefe, 2009). In addition to the lack of censorship, the Vietnam War differed from all previous U.S wars because of the JOURNALISTS’ ACCESS TO SOURCES 4 widespread television coverage. The U.S administration and the press also had different goals in mind for what information would be distributed during the war. The administration and the military sought to keep a high public opinion “through optimistic briefings and relatively conservative body counts, the press sought to report the ‘whole story’ of the ongoing conflict” (Paul & Kim, 2004, p. 36). This meant the press would televise graphic images “that often belied the ‘official’ accounts” (p. 36). The tensions that emerged between the press and the military due to their differing objectives, along with the widely circulated notion that the press caused a loss of public opinion for the war, and, as a result, contributed to the loss of the Vietnam War, led to an effort to restrict backlash in media freedoms for future foreign conflicts. During the U.S invasion of Grenada in 1983, censorship played a more significant role for journalists. Journalists were not allowed to cover the initial invasion of Grenada at all (Paul & Kim, 2004, p. 39). Forty-eight hours after beginning of the invasion, 15 journalists were escorted to the island by U.S forces. Three days later, the press was given complete access, but fighting had concluded long before that point (p. 39). The Department of Defense attempted to have more media involvement in the Persian Gulf War (1991) with the introduction of the press pool system (Norris, 1991). Journalists in the pool system were essentially employed by the Department of Defense and “contractually, the censorship [took] the form of an agreement signed by the pool reporter, agreeing to ground rules or guidelines that [included] submitting ‘to a ‘security review’” (Norris, 1991, p. 226). Although the Persian Gulf War granted the press more freedoms than they had in Grenada, in the Persian Gulf War, journalists were, essentially, being subjected to “pre-censorship.” This meant that almost all journalists’ moves were directed by the government, and the government decided what events journalists could or could not see. Journalists came to vehemently oppose the pool system because “the prior limitation and control JOURNALISTS’ ACCESS TO SOURCES 5 of access to combat news made the data and firsthand accounts needed for the historiography of the Persian Gulf War irretrievable” (Keefe, 2009, p. 5). Due to multiple media outlet’s loud opposition to the pool system, and the debate about whether or not the pool system was constitutional, the Department of Defense realized that a different, more middle ground, policy was necessary for the media’s coverage of the Iraq war. The government took a completely different type of approach for how media would be permitted to cover the 2003 Iraq War when it introduced its program to “embed” journalists in military units. The Department of Defense allowed over 600 journalists to “live, work and travel as part of the units with which they are embedded to facilitate maximum, in- depth coverage of U.S forces in combat and related operations” (Pfau et al., 2004, p. 74). The Department of Defense defined embedded reporters as “a media representative remaining with a unit on an extended basis” (Pfau et al., 2004, p. 74). On the other hand, unilateral reporters were any war correspondent not associated with a military unit. They remained behind the lines of fighting or stayed in one main city. In the case of the Iraq War, many unilateral journalists remained in Baghdad. Embedded journalists’ articles mainly contained quotes from soldiers and Iraqi citizens, while unilateral journalists gathered quotes from Iraqi government officials as well as Iraqi citizens. Right away, the embed program evoked arguments from both supporters and critics, and the exact reasons for the Department of Defense to initiate the program remain unclear. However, Bryan Whitman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Media Operations, claimed that the embedded program would allow the truth of what was happening in the fighting overseas to stand at the forefront and was completely necessary “‘because Saddam Hussein was a practiced liar, a master of deception’ and the only way to defend against that is through JOURNALISTS’ ACCESS TO SOURCES 6 ‘objective third-party accounts from professional observers’” (Pfau et al., 2004, p. 75). Supporters of the program argued that the embed program “offered a first-hand, up close view of combat missions that was unavailable to unilateral (unembedded) or pool reporters” (p. 75). In this sense, reporters would have the opportunity to report war in a way journalists had never been able to previously. In a New York Times article by Ralph Blumenthal and Jim Rutenberg (2003), headlined “Threats and Responses: The Media; Journalists are Assigned to Accompany U.S Troops,” journalists expressed some cautious, but positive, reactions to the embed program. David Halberstam acknowledged that journalists would benefit from their access to the soldiers in their units. Halberstam commented, “soldiers will always talk to reporters with them in the field… the grunt has an inalienable right to tell the truth” (Blumenthal & Rutenberg, 2003, p. 2). In this article, even though journalists know they are doing a service for the Department of Defense, they cannot miss the opportunity to report so closely on the military. Additionally, although the program would provide journalists with an unprecedented opportunity to see military operations up close, critics also claimed journalists would be unable to remain objective in their writings. In response to Blumenthal and Rutenberg (2003), one week later The New York Times published a letter to the editor that called the Department of Defense’s motives into question. In “War on Iraq? Calls to Act, and Voices of Doubt; At the Front,” by E. M. Cowardin Jr., the intense bond and loyalty amongst soldiers in combat is emphasized. Cowardin follows this crucial point by stating, “I suspect that the Pentagon hopes that this same group psychology will rub off on ‘embedded’ reporters… With ‘embedding,’ the Pentagon just may have discovered a brilliant way to turn reporters into public relations functionaries” (2003, p. 1). Cowardin’s critique is representative of critics’ arguments at the time. In a Washington Post article, Howard Kurtz (2003) attempts to present multiple journalists’ opinions. One JOURNALISTS’ ACCESS TO SOURCES 7 especially negative opinion came from Janet Leissner, CBS’s Washington bureau chief at the time. She claimed the government wanted to have complete control over the embedding program and “‘they will dole out the embedding slots, who will go where. They say once you take someone out, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to replace them’- a practice the Pentagon calls ‘embedding for life’” (2003, p. 2).
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