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Introduction
The notion of embedding reporters
with military units is as old as the United States Civil War and was
the way most wars were covered through Vietnam. In the spring of 2003,
the face of combat reporting changed when the U.S. military implemented
a systematic program to identify, and proactively facilitate the embedding
of hundreds of reporters with combat units participating in Operation
Iraqi Freedom. The unprecedented, broad scope of this initiative included
all the armed services, including close combat units fighting Iraqi
troops across the desert and through city streets (P. Mitchell, personal
communication, November 18, 2003).
Modern-day embedding has its genesis in the aftermath of the invasion
of Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury in October 1983 and the invasion
of Panama during Operation Just Cause in 1989. News media were completely
left out of the planning and execution of these campaigns, and the backlash
of their exclusion ripped through the Pentagon. It was the beginning
of the end for the military operating in an information vacuum (P. Mitchell,
personal communication, November 18, 2003). There was limited embedding
during Operation Desert Storm January, 1991 and reporters have banged
on the Pentagon’s door ever since (Tomayo, 2003). According to
a spokesperson for the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense Public
Affair (OASD (PA)) and United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), the
most immediate action was taken by Army and Marine Corps units who began
to doctrinally embed media on a smaller scale and most often during
exercises. Embedding began to appear as part of units’ Standard
Operating Procedures (P. Mitchell, personal communication, November
18, 2003).
Never in the history of warfare have so many media embedded with combat
forces than during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The driving force was the
realization that Iraq had a large disinformation campaign underway.
Victoria Clarke, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and
Bryan Whitman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs
et al. realized this early and convinced Donald Rumsfeld, United States
Secretary of Defense the only way to defeat the Iraqi misinformation
campaign was to have objective, third-party observers on the ground.
Otherwise, the information war had the potential of becoming a ‘he-said,
we-said’ struggle (D. Hetlege, personal communication, November
18, 2003).
Once Donald Rumsfeld agreed with the plan to embed, OASD(PA) was the
central agency for managing and vetting media embeds to include allocating
embed slots to media organizations (Secretary of Defense, 2003). The
Department of Defense Public Affairs Office, with United States Central
Command Public Affairs turned to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine
Corps to see how many media their respective deploying units could take.
The Department of Defense took the 920 media positions designated by
the services, and offered them to the news media bureau chiefs who then
assigned the reporters with units. Only 775 names were provided by the
media from more than 250 media outlets worldwide. Twenty-five percent
were offered to international media, and 10% to local media picked by
the commands in military-concentrated media markets, with the remainder
of the slots being allocated to major networks and publications throughout
theater. When ground operations began on March 20, 2003, only approximately
550 journalists reported for duty with the military.
The Department of Defense, commanders and units on the ground and the
media, consider the program an overall success. When Muhammed Saeed
al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s Minister of Information who was dubbed by Coalition
Forces ‘Baghdad Bob/Comical Ali’, went on air April 2003
in a press conference to say U.S. and Coalition Forces were hundreds
of miles from Baghdad, embedded news reporters were able to simultaneously
show U.S. armored vehicles at the outskirts of the city to refute al-Sahhaf’s
claim.
There were several media casualties, and less than 10 media members
were removed from the embed program for breaking ground rules. The ground
rules were established by OASD(PA) and included in the Public Affairs
Guidance on Embedding Media During Possible Future Operations/Deployments
in the USCENTCOM Area of Responsibility. The ground rules were agreed
to and signed by media members prior to embedding. Ground rules defined
releasable and non-releasable information (i.e. preparation for operations,
location/proximately of friendly forces). Reporter Geraldo Rivera was
removed from the embed program for violating the ground rules by drawing
a map of his unit’s location in the dirt. He was subsequently
re-embedded.
This investigation measures the impact of embedding and whether this
practice changes tone and substance of news reports filed by reporters.
In addition, it seeks to gauge military responses to the tone of coverage
by reporters. In particular, this study seeks to determine whether reports
originating from broadcast journalists embedded with allied forces during
the opening days of the ground war of Operation Iraqi Freedom differed
from reports filed by non-embedded broadcast journalists. Our assumption
is that embedded journalists who traveled and lived with members of
the armed forces, were assimilated into the military culture and developed
an affinity with these troops, and would file news reports with a more
positive tone, and with more episodic framing. We also assume that military
members believe that embedded reporters produced more news reports that
were favorable to the military. During this study, a content analysis
was conducted of news broadcasts which aired March 20 to 26, 2003 from
four major television networks to assess whether broadcast news coverage
differed from embedded and non-embedded journalists. In addition, a
survey was conducted of military members, randomly selected throughout
the Department of Defense, to gauge their beliefs regarding favorability
of embedded news reports.
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