Embedded Reporting: Press Freedom or the Erosion of Liberty?

Scholars of the American system of governance have often referred to the press as the “fourth branch” of American politics; it being perceived as a necessary foil to governmental abuse (Lee & Solomon, 1990, p. 348). Since the very moment that the freedom of the press was enshrined within that system in 1787, there has been a constant give-and-take between the press and the government upon which it reports. This struggle between the freedom of the press and the concerns of the government has had their most striking engagements during the 20th century on the shores of foreign lands: the prize being the power to shape public opinion and thereby support for any given military conflict in which the nation was engaged. The dawn of the 21st century has seen a new front opened in the struggle for press freedoms, but this time it comes not in a veil of censorship, but with the allure of openness and disclosure. The latest weapon of mass disinformation to be employed in this conflict is known as the “embedded reporter.” Embedded reporting is the primary means by which the United States government manipulates and controls the gathering and dissemination of events on the battlefield.

War correspondence has evolved dramatically during the 20th century, as illustrated in the following timeline. World War II marked the beginning of the U.S. military’s use of reporters in managing public opinion. The term “combat correspondent” was first coined in 1942 in reference to reporters travelling with Marine units in the Pacific theater. The U.S. military formed a corps of enlisted men and officers consisting of writers and both still and motion photographers. Reporters from the public media were not considered officially as combat correspondents because they were not attached to the military. This distinction was of little importance at the time resulting from the fact that public reporters were not given less access to information and individuals as combat correspondents: they were treated as equals. Combat correspondents were seen as an opportunity for the military to provide a perspective of events from within the armed forces themselves and not to replace the contributions of the independent media (Stewart, 2005).

Public correspondents during the Korean War enjoyed a degree of freedom that hasn’t been seen since that time. Those that reported from the battlefront did so completely unfettered by the United States military or any prevailing law or regulation. Combat correspondence became a functional part of military operations for the first time, but still not working in conjunction with the public media. This period of evolution is important as it marked the first time that public media outlets began to take advantage of information written by combat correspondents to supplement that material submitted by their own correspondents in the field. It was seen that the mixture of perspectives served to provide a wider degree of coverage and viewpoints. However, after Viet Nam, the military adopted formal procedures in dealing with public correspondents on the battlefield, which has culminated in the modern phenomenon of embedded reporting. The Viet Nam era saw entrance of unprecedented images of the conflict, and such reporting and images were presented to the average American providing a here to for unprecedented level of interest and concern for each movement within the conflict. It was during this time that the contributions from individual combat correspondents were seen to become as equally critical of combat operations as the public media (Stewart, 2005). It is commonly accepted that this level of unprecedented access and unfettered reporting are the catalysts for the formation of the current embedded reporter program (Slagle, 2006).

Unclassified government documents provide the exact rules by which embedded reporters and their subsequent reports from the battlefield are to be governed by military officials and what oversight and protection military commanders are expected to provide. An analysis of these rules shows that they are, at the same time restrictive and arbitrary, allowing for wide latitude in interpretation by individual commanders which provides for the potential of abuse. The embedded program also provides a significant bias towards large, established news organizations. For example, a freelance journalist may not become an officially embedded reporter without sponsorship from a news organization deemed as credible by the Department of Defense (Wolfowitz, 2003). The argument may very well be made that freelance journalists would not be subject to the pressures and influence from editors and production staff, and therefore are considered less “trustworthy” in their ability restrain themselves from controversial reporting. For those reporters that are able to acquire such sponsorship, it is clearly stated that there is no process of review by which information may be deemed appropriate for release; however embedded reporters wishing to leave the program may be instructed not to publish information in their possession under threat of legal penalty. This may, at first glance, seem to be acquiescence to a policy of openness and honesty; however there are still ample, more subtle controls in place to influence the reporting of individual correspondents (Wolfowitz, 2003).

The fear and liability for the safety of their employees is the primary and coercive argument employed to convince mainstream media organizations to subscribe to the embedded reporter program. Reporters are warned that their safety is not the responsibility of the government if they are not embedded with a unit (Wolfowitz, 2003). However, a review of the facts relating to the number of battlefield fatalities during armed conflict in the 20th century shows that the embedded program is not effective in protecting the safety and wellbeing of journalists. In reality, more journalists have been killed in the Iraq War than in Viet Nam, or in any other conflict in which the United States had participated and news correspondents were in the field during the entirety of the 20th century. The chart below indicates the exact number of combat fatalities of battlefield reporters through the major conflicts of the past 100 years. It is worth noting that there was not significant battlefield correspondence during World War I, and thus it was omitted from the calculations.

Contrary to stated public policy, individual reporters were given ratings by the Pentagon whereby they were graded as to the nature and accuracy of the information reported (Strupp, 2009). Such a policy is in direct contradiction to the stated purpose of the embedded reporter program. Strupp (2009) documents that Stars and Stripes reported that the Pentagon was reviewing a practice of rating reporters embedded with the military, specifically in Afghanistan. The Pentagon initially denied such reports through appointed spokespersons, as such behavior was not in keeping with the spirit nor the letter of the rules used to govern embedded reporters. Later, such a position was no longer maintained in public statements although no formal statement of contrition was ever made in public. Even with the reported incidents of abuse, no formal inquiry was to be launched; however at least one embedded correspondent was provided her ratings after the program was supposed to have been terminated. This pattern of behavior is highly irregular and goes to show a direct manipulation of the freedom of the press within the context of battlefield reporting. For the Pentagon to presume such responsibility as determining the fitness of individual public correspondents for inclusion in the program assumes a level of hubris to which not even the infamous “military industrial complex” of the Johnson administration of the 1960’s had laid claim.

Beyond providing a means of control over the individual reporters assigned to the embedded program, it is surmised that the military may exert an undue influence over the context of the reporting that is provided by public correspondents. A detailed textual analysis of the reporting of such reporters displays a distinct pro-military bias (Pfau, Haigh, Gettle, & Donnelly, 2004). The explanation for this is provided through an analysis of the situation in which the embedded reporter operates during the course of their assignment. Firstly, an embedded reporter has no access to information beyond that of the unit with which he or she may be embedded. As a result, the embedding of reporters routinely fails to present the story of the war or battle as a whole, but instead provides views of individual soldiers or units. Second, deployments may last for weeks or days at a time and terrain and combat conditions may make communication with producers or other reporters impossible. These extended periods in which correspondents are out of contact greatly delay the timely reporting of information, as the decision to allot resources to assist the embedded reporter to file their story is under the direct discretion of the commander in the field (Wolfowitz, 2003). There is little to no incentive to news organizations to present embedded reporting as a contiguous picture of events. The objectivity of a reporter is sacrificed when forced to depend upon the unit with which they are embedded for their lives. Bonds formed under fire apply to journalists as well as the soldiers with which they are embedded. A reporter is less likely to portray such individuals in a negative light.

As the structure of battlefield reporting has changed, the informational coverage between wars has changed appropriately. It is important to remember that correspondents from the main stream media are the primary subjects of embedded reporting and are individuals trained and well practiced in the discernment between personal bias and the elucidation of the facts. When asked about their perceptions of such changes in war coverage, reporters from various generations agree regarding the presence of an increased restriction in the amount and type of information reported. Chrisitiane Amapour, a veteran reporter of multiple conflicts for CNN, indicated a fundamental distrust of government institutions and the information that comes from them. She stated further that:
“... a certain bond of trust between government, military, and press that existed up until Vietnam has totally been shattered now, so the relationship is now almost exclusively adversarial or party line. It's two extremes, if you like. I think that the military - let's take the U.S. military - learned the lessons of Vietnam. It's an institution that goes on forever, and it has totally learned the lessons (Smith, 2000).”

Morley Safer, a veteran reporter of the Viet Nam conflict, indicated that the military has a greater capacity to bypass established news outlets, circumventing the potential for in-depth analysis such organizations provide (Smith, 2000). Comparative content analysis performed on information reported during the first and second Gulf Wars revealed striking differences in the tone of coverage. The more prolific the reporter in the mind of the public, the more slanted towards a pro-military stance that reporting was analyzed to be. Depictions of individual troops were statistically proven to employ more positive verbiage (Slagle, 2006). It would then seem that both scientifically and the anecdotal experience of veteran correspondents agree that there is a definitive increase in pro-government bias of public combat correspondents.

Fundamental to the operation of a fair, just, democratic society is a population which is fully and accurately informed as to the conducting of business by its government and in its name. Those who drafted the founding documents of the United States saw fit to afford this obligation to a free and commercial press, entrusting that the very nature of such a beast would be pressure enough to keep its tamers at bay. Nearly two hundred and forty years later that which was taken as a fundamental truth was seen undone by the creative military minds that envisioned the embedded reporter program. Operating under the guise of openness and disclosure, the embedded reporter program behaves on the basest of levels: adopted forced by extortion and fear, supported with ignorance of the battlefield, and enshrined by collusion in the drafting of the information reported. Such manipulation of the press was only thought to have been evidenced in the former Soviet Bloc or South American dictatorships; however the 21st century has seen the potential development of a new “Iron Curtain,” this time between the governors and the governed, and covered with a fine layer of velvet.

References
Lee, M. & Solomon, N. (1990). Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News
Media. New York, NY: Carol Publishing Group
Stewart, H. (2005). War news media coverage: what the U.S. Army in Iraq could learn from past combat correspondents.
Wolfowitz, P. (2003). Memo on public affairs guidance, Dated February 3, 2003.
Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. Retrieved January 27, 2010 from http://www.defense.gov
Strupp, J. "UPDATE: Pentagon Reviewing Its Embedded Reporter 'Rating' Practices."
Editor & Publisher (2009, August 27). General OneFile. Retrieved January 13. 2010 fromhttp://find.galegroup.com
Pfau, M., Haigh, M., Gettle, M., & Donnelly, M. (March 1, 2004) Embedding journalists in military combat units: impact on newspaper story frames and tone. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 81, Issue 1, p74.
Smith, T. (2000) NewsHour (Television series). PBS: Boston
Slagle, M (2006) Now to war: a textual analysis of embedded print reporters in the second Iraq War. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest Information and Learning Company