LAMPREYS UNDER a SHARK Embedded News Reporters and the Military in the 21St Century
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LAMPREYS UNDER A SHARK Embedded news reporters and the military in the 21st century © by Benjamin W. Hadaway, 2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library and Bibliotheque et Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-16488-4 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-16488-4 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce,Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve,sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet,distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform,et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be includedBien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. i * i Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract The most prominent development in media-military relations during the 2003 American- led invasion of Iraq was the creation of the embedding system. The Canadian military used a similar embedding system to grant reporters access to its mission in Afghanistan. And while embedding is not new in concept or in name, the scale and organized use of the system is. By placing the embedding system in historical context, this thesis will argue it is an improvement on other media-military systems. But, this should not mask the important fact that the Pentagon used the embedding system as a pretext to block other types of reporting. In contrast, the Canadian embedding system was more permissive towards journalists. Rather than reflecting an ideological difference between militaries, the different systems were due to circumstantial differences in mission. Ultimately, the journalistic value of embedding depends upon the nature of the mission in which it is used. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements Many thanks to all those who assisted me in this endeavor, especially my thesis supervisor Paul Adams, my second reader Dr. Christopher Doman, and my examination board. In addition, thanks to Allan Thompson and Jim Bronskill for their help in using Access to Information, and Peter Johansen for his general help throughout the year. Contact: bwhadaway@hotmail. com iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. v Introduction.............................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: History ..............................................................................................................9 Standing on the Shoulder of Giants: Crimean War, 1854 - 1856 ...................... 12 Journalism and Total War: World War One, 1914 - 1918................................... 17 Journalism and Total War: World War Two, 1939 - 1945................................... 21 Vietnam: Beginning of the End, 1954 - 1975........................................................ 24 Four Point Restraint: The Falkland Islands War, 1982 .......................................... 27 Lessons Learned: Grenada, 1983 .............................................................................31 Pooled: Panama, 1989............................................................................................... 34 Divided and Conquered: Gulf War, 1991............................................................... 37 Chapter Two: Theory .............................................................................................................42 Communication Strategy and Theory ......................................................................45 Source Motivations: Public Right to Know ............................................................ 51 Public Relations and Public Support ........................................................................54 Media Credibility ...................................................................................................... 56 Information Vacuum ................................................................................................. 59 Source Techniques: Absorption ............................................................................... 61 Chapter Three: Dynamic Embedding - Iraq 2003 .............................................................. 67 Access to Afghanistan ...............................................................................................70 Origins of Embedding ...............................................................................................74 Embedding Policy Developed and Implemented ....................................................79 Organizational Systems for Media-Military Relations.......................................... 83 Embedding Versus Denial of Access .......................................................................83 Embedding Versus Pooling .......................................................................................85 Devil’s in the Details: Public Affairs Guidance on Embedding ............................93 Unilateral Journalists................................................................................................95 Transportation and Inaction ..................................................................................... 99 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter Four: Static Embedding - Afghanistan 2003-2005 .............................................103 Background to Canadian Forces Involvement in Afghanistan ...........................106 Recent Media-Military Relations in Canada....................................................... 110 Static Embedding for the Canadian Military: Operation Athena, August 2003 - January 2004 .................................................................................114 Static Embedding for the Canadian News M edia ............................................... 120 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................127 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................134 VI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes or decisions possible or impossible to be executed. -Abraham Lincoln1 The first essential in military operations is that no information of value shall be given to the enemy. The first essential in newspaper work and broadcasting is wide-open publicity. It is your job and mine to reconcile those sometimes diverse considerations. -Dwight D. Eisenhower" I In debate with Stephen Douglas, 21 August, 1858. Cited in Ray Eldon Hiebert, Courtier to the Crowd: The Story of Ivy Lee and the Development ofPublic Relations. (Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1966). II Cited in: Office of the Secretary of Defense. “Conduct of the Persian Gulf War.” Final Report to Congress, April 1992, p. 651. (http://www.ndu.edu/library/epubs/cpgw.pdf) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 Two weeks before the first United States’ (US) cruise missiles struck targets in Baghdad, Iraq, marking the beginning of the second US-led invasion of that country, the fax machine in the office of Secretary of Defense Donald