Embedded journalism: a necessary facet of war coverage

As the United States military operated covertly in the Persian Gulf in 1991, breaking down Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait and expelling Iraqi forces from the small country, the American news media was growing restless. They knew they had a responsibility to show the people what their nation’s military was doing abroad, how their tax dollars were being spent, and for what cause their young men were being deployed to a small Arab country. The people, moreover, had grown to expect such illumination after provocative war coverage brought the Tet Offensive into their living rooms in 1968 and CBS’s Walter Cronkite voiced his grim opinions about the Vietnam War. When the Gulf War concluded with little to no media access, the U.S. media became determined to bring future war activities home to the people, and the nation’s off-camera invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 gave them the excuse they needed to establish a consistent war coverage system. The U.S. military simultaneously realized they could direct war reporting to shed positive light on their efforts and gain the support of their people, so they permitted the training and embedding of war correspondents in active units following the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This tactic, while it jeopardized the safety of hundreds of news reporters, succeeded in unveiling the true nature of combat and was crucial in the American people’s continued support of their nation’s cause—however futile a cause it may have been.

Reporters like Cronkite, who were granted access to battleground only after major combat had ceased so that they could walk through the rubble and film dead bodies, were entrusted with the delicate task of illustrating to their viewers how the battle had played out. Embedded journalists in Iraq had a different sort of weight on their shoulders—they were placed in the line of fire; yet their cameras showed viewers how each battle was playing out. Reporters were thrust into dangerous combat situations and often disregarded their personal safety to capture what they needed, but they were given unprecedented access to every facet of battle operation.

Some correspondents were ambivalent about marching to the beat of the military’s drum. They often felt pressured to portray every military initiative as a positive stride toward victory, and rarely censured their units’ efforts for fear of tainting the soldier-reporter relationships they had established.  Yet despite the somewhat skewed angle many reporters were forced to take in their coverage of the U.S.’s strategic efforts, the footage of battle they captured was as real as the cameras they were using. Journalists did not alter their material to downplay the gruesomeness of armed combat, nor did they avoid the most hazardous circumstances when they felt good material was at stake. Overall, embedded journalism was an invaluable part of war coverage during the height of the U.S. activity in Iraq, and although it did not always provide for the most straightforward portrayal of military operation on a grand scheme, it revealed the true, macabre nature of man-to-man combat in the throes of war.

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