BY JEFF EMANUEL
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Operation Iraqi Freedom saw the advent of a practice that revolutionized
modern war reporting: the embedding of journalists with frontline combat
units in war. This practice gave the media, the American public and the
world unprecedented access to the soldiers on the front lines, as well as to
the war itself, through the filing of stories, photographs and video from
the battlefront in real time, by reporters who were right there with the
soldiers doing the fighting. "We were offered an irresistible opportunity:
free transportation to the front line of the war, dramatic pictures,
dramatic sounds, great quotes," said Tom Gjelten of National Public Radio.
"Who can pass that up?"
While the military also benefited from having an eager outlet for its
stories and successes, the biggest result of the embedding process was the
shift it caused in the relationship between the military and the media,
which laid the groundwork for a fundamental change in the dynamics of war
reporting. As Maj. Gen. Buford Blount of the Army's Third Infantry Division
explained, "A level of trust developed between the soldier and the media
that offered nearly unlimited access."
Despite the obvious benefits of embedded reportage, though, the practice has
met with its share of (expected) criticism from members of the Fourth
Estate. Beginning even before Operation Iraqi Freedom kicked off, media
spokesmen and others--such as University of Texas professor Robert
Jensen--expressed concern that "embedded reporters would inevitably become
too sympathetic to the troops with whom they were traveling." Theories were
put forth that this was a "primary motivation on the part of military
planners in designing the embedded system in the first place," and that the
U.S. government was simply taking the approach of "feed the media beast
enough stories that cast U.S. troops in the best possible light and the job
of managing the media message is all but taken care of."
The latter is, of course, an absurdly simplistic notion. Rather than simply
sitting back and receiving dispatches and releases carefully crafted to
"cast U.S. troops in the best possible light," embedded reporters, by the
very nature of their task, see the troops with whom they are living,
working, and experiencing danger at all times--the good, the bad, the
heroic, the angry, the emotional and the rest of the entire human spectrum.
The former, though, does ring true to a degree; the debate on that count,
then, is whether or not that is actually a bad thing.
While I was at the Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad on my recent
trip to Iraq, a pair of Spanish journalists--a newspaper reporter and a
photojournalist--walked in, fresh from their embed with the 1-4 Cavalry of
the First Infantry Division (the unit with which I embedded only days
later). They had spent two weeks amongst the troops there, living and going
on missions with them, including house-to-house searches and seizures, and
their impressions of these soldiers were extremely clear.
"Absolutely amazing," said David Beriain, the reporter (and the one who
spoke English), said of the young Cavalry troops. "In Spain, it is
embarrassing--our soldiers are ashamed to be in the army. These young
men--and they seem so young!--are so proud of what they do, and do it so
well, even though it is dangerous and they could very easily be killed." Mr.
Beriain explained that the company he had been embedded with had lost three
men in the span of six days while he was there--one to a sniper and two to
improvised explosive devices, both of which had blown armored Humvees into
the air and flipped them onto their roofs. Despite this, he said, and
despite some of the things they might have said in the heat of the moment
after seeing another comrade die, the soldiers' resolve and morale was
unshaken in the long term, and they remained committed to carrying out their
mission to the best of their ability for the duration of their tours in
Iraq.
It was in the process of performing that mission, of coping with the loss of
loved ones, and of just being themselves as American soldiers that these
young men were able to win over the admiration and affection of more than
one journalist who had arrived in their midst harboring a less-than-positive
opinion of the Iraq war, and of those who were tasked with prosecuting it.
"I love those guys," Mr. Beriain said, looking wistfully out the window of
the media cloister in the Green Zone that is the Combined Press Information
Center. "From the first time you go kick a door with them, they accept
you--you're one of them. I've even got a 'family photo' with them" to
remember them by. "I really hated to leave."
Such a radical transformation--and such a strong bond of affection--can
rarely be forged in so little time outside of the constant, universal peril
of a wartime environment. "It is those common experiences," Mr. Beriain
explained, "where you are all in danger, and you go through it together. It
builds a relationship instantly."
It doesn't matter how skeptical of the war a journalist might be, according
to an Army public affairs officer who spoke with me about it on condition of
anonymity. "So often, they come out of that experience and--even if their
opinion of the war hasn't changed--they're completely won over by the
troops."
"I was one of those," admitted Mr. Beriain, speaking broken English and
blinking away tears. "No matter what you think of the war, or what has
happened here, you cannot be around the soldiers and not be completely
affected. They are amazing people, and they represent themselves and the
Army better than anyone could ever imagine." A retired Army officer
concurred, telling me that "young troops are some of the best goodwill
ambassadors we've ever produced. It would never occur to one to not tell you
what he's really thinking, and they are so earnest" that it is almost
impossible not to be won over by them if given enough time.
The most spectacular recent case of a journalist with an antiwar mindset
being completely overwhelmed into a change of heart by American soldiers,
according to the public affairs officer, was a Greek public television
reporter who had been embedded with an infantry unit that became entrenched
in a 45-minute firefight with insurgents. Yanked out of the line of fire by
a soldier who put the journalist's life above his own, he waited under cover
and in fear of his life for the almost hourlong duration of the battle, with
the best view possible of American soldiers in action against an armed and
murderous enemy. He credits his having lived to tell the tale directly to
those young troops.
"He had tears in his eyes as he talked about it," said the public affairs
officer. "He just kept saying, 'They saved my life, they saved my life. . .
.. These are great men; they are heroes.' Even after telling it several
times, he couldn't get through the story without choking up--and this was a
man who had arrived here with all of the disdain for the Iraq mission and
for the American soldiers who he [like seemingly most Europeans] had seen as
the bad guys in this fight."
While embedding may be decried by some for causing journalists, who claim
the utopian titles of "objective" and "neutral" for their reportage, to lose
their cold detachment and actually begin to see the soldiers they live
alongside as humans, it is that very quality that makes the practice of
embedding reporters with military units so beneficial to both parties.
Rather than observing events from a safely detached distance--and thus being
able to remove the human element from the equation--embedded reporters are
forced to face up to the humanity of their subjects, and to share common
experiences--often of the life-and-death variety--with those they are
covering.
Human nature being what it is, such close working conditions, and such
common, life-threatening experiences, will have an effect on both parties
involved--and it is a testament both to the soldiers themselves, and to the
journalists who volunteer to live and work alongside them, that that effect
has, in so many cases, been so positive.
--
Mr. Emanuel, a special operations military veteran who served in Iraq, is a
leadership fellow with the Center for International Trade and Security at
the University of Georgia. He is also a contributing editor for
RedState.com, and is a columnist for the Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald.
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