This Week: The Mysterious Embeds

"Quote" of the Week

The Problem With Embedded Journalists

The Story of the Mysterious Embeds

 

Greetings,

This second week of the Spring 2007 Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive is taken up almost entirely with a personal story of failure. I relate just a part of the story of how I tried and failed to find out which members of the U.S. media who are reporting from Iraq are working as "embedded journalists."

I tell this story of failure for two reasons. First of all, I think it is an interesting story, especially for those who don't do journalism, as it gives a hint of how it sometimes works. Even an unsuccessful quest for answers reveals a lot, as I think you'll see this week. At least, it clarifies the questions, and raises new ones.

The second reason I tell this story now—during a Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive—is to make the point that this attempt to report on the embed phenomenon would probably not have failed if I had had enough time to follow through and make the calls and contacts that would have been needed to finish off this story.

And that's where YOU come in. Time is the very thing that you give when you make a Pledge of support to Nygaard Notes. That is, the more income I receive from your Pledges, the less time I need to work at my "day jobs" and the more time I can spend pursuing stories like this one, and the various other stories I've had to call off over the years and that you've never heard about.

So, this week it's Story Time Notes, and I hope it inspires a few of you to finally go ahead and make your Pledge of support for Nygaard Notes. Thanks!

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

The following comment is from the Friends of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a group formed to protect the ABC from cuts in their public funding. Their vision statement affirms that an independent press is "an essential component of a democracy," and then they say that:

"Credible investigative journalism takes time, it requires diligence, proper funding, courage, integrity and independence."

When it comes to Nygaard Notes, I can hopefully supply the diligence, the courage, and the integrity. But the "proper funding" part is up to YOU, the readers of Nygaard Notes. YOU supply the funding by making a Pledge of support for Nygaard Notes. The greater the number of pledges, the more time and care I can put into each issue. My decision to forego any funding from advertising, corporations, or public money is based on my belief that a system of broad-based, voluntary support is the best way to make a project like this truly independent.

But it only works if sufficient numbers of you show your support for this example of "credible investigative journalism" by making a Pledge of financial support.

Please do your part to make the Spring 2007 Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive a success. Pledge today!

The Problem With Embedded Journalists

When a journalist works under the direct protection of military units, that journalist is said to be "embedded" with the troops.

Joe Strupp, writing in the January 27, 2006 edition of "Editor and Publisher," tells us that "The embedding of journalists around the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 was deemed an almost unqualified success by both military officials and journalists who participated in a Defense Department-sponsored study of the program, which was conducted in 2004 but only now made public." An almost unqualified success? Well, no doubt! Here are a few hints as to why the "Defense" Department might say such a thing.

Here's Colonel William Darley, writing in the U.S. Army publication "Military Review:"
"Well, embedding is a tremendous thing for public affairs officers. Every embed is a straw. You're seeing the war through a straw. So it's a good thing for the military. The more straws you can get out there, the more coverage, I think, the better. The military's not going to succeed unless it has political—and certainly in connection with that—public support. If you don't have political support, if you don't have public support—the translation of political support—the military can't succeed."

Jules Crittenden, a journalist for the Boston Herald Reporter, embedded in the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in 2003, said of the embed experience, "There is no question that it is nearly impossible to live with a group of well-intentioned men in trying circumstances and not feel yourself slowly becoming one of them..."

Gordon Dillow, a columnist for the Orange County Register in California, was also embedded with the U.S. military in 2003. I'll quote him at length, as I believe his comments flesh out Crittenden's point and, in the process, illustrate exactly why the military is so confident that "more coverage" is going to be "better" for the military's political success. (Note that infantrymen are known in the military as "grunts," and "J-school" is journalism school.) Dillow said:

"[T]he biggest problem I faced as an embed with the Marine grunts was that I found myself doing what journalists are warned from J-school not to do: I found myself falling in love with my subject. I fell in love with ‘my' Marines.

"Maybe it's understandable. When you live with the same guys for weeks, sharing their dangers and miseries, learning about their wives and girlfriends, their hopes and dreams, admiring their physical courage and strength, you start to make friends—closer friends in some ways than you'll ever have outside of war. Isolated from everyone else, you start to see your small corner of the world the same way they do.

"I didn't hide anything. For example, when some of my Marines fired up a civilian vehicle that was bearing down on them, killing three unarmed Iraqi men, I reported it—but I didn't lead my story with it, and I was careful to put it in the context of scared young men trying to protect themselves. Or when my Marines laughed about how .50-caliber machine gun bullets had torn apart an Iraqi soldier's body, I wrote about it, but in the context of sweet-faced, all-American boys hardened by a war that wasn't of their making.

"And so on. The point wasn't that I wasn't reporting the truth; the point was that I was reporting the Marine grunt truth—which had also become my truth."

One can find many similar comments from other embedded reporters.

The Story of the Mysterious Embeds

One study by a Penn State University researcher found that, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "embedded journalists" were responsible for 71 percent of the stories on the front pages of major newspapers and 69 percent of stories inside the main news sections.

This predominance of "embedded" reports seemed to me to be sort-of well-known during the invasion. But by the fall of 2005 I noticed that nobody was talking about the embedding phenomenon. So I decided, for the sake of Nygaard Notes readers, to report on exactly which U.S. reporters in Iraq were embedded and which were working independent of the military (un-embedded reporters are known as "unilaterals.") Do you remember reading this Nygaard Notes report? No, you do not, because I never ran it. And here is a little story about why I did not.

The story begins on October 20th of 2005, when I started looking around for a list of embedded reporters in Iraq. I could not find a list of such people and, not only that, but I couldn't even find much reference to the whole issue of reporters being embedded, beyond the occasional reference buried in an Associated Press news brief.

The only thing resembling a list that I could find was put together by a group called "Marine Parents" from March 3, 2004. This list seemed unreliable to me—in addition to being out of date—so I contacted some journalist organizations and asked "Is there a list to be found, anywhere, of U.S./Western reporters in Iraq that indicates their status as either independent or ‘embedded?' I have been trying to find such a list, and everything I find is more or less from 2003."

Nobody knew of such a list, but the group called Investigative Reporters and Editors gave me contact information for the embed people at the Pentagon, so I contacted them. They sent me the "ground rules" for embedded reporters, which was interesting, but they said that they had no list of who was following these rules. Right around this time I ran across a study by the RAND Corporation (from December 7 2004) which stated that "The Defense Department's decision to embed journalists with U.S. troops invading Iraq in 2003 was a success for the military, the media and the public..." Really!

Next I wrote to the New York Times, asking if any Times reporters were embedded at that time, and "Specifically, is Sabrina Tavernise working as an embedded journalist?" Within minutes I got an automated response that included the statement "If a further reply is appropriate, you will be hearing from us shortly." The next thing I heard was a month later, on November 25th, when I got a copy of the same automated response.

On November 11th 2005 I talked on the phone (off the record, so I can't name him) with Lt. Col. "X" from the Pentagon, who told me that, if there was a list of currently-embedded reporters he couldn't tell me who's on it because "it's privacy act information." I pointed out that I wasn't looking for personal information, but was just trying to find out who is embedded and who is not. Col. X told me that I'd have to contact the individual news organizations on that.

My next contact in the military bureaucracy was the very professional and helpful 2nd Lt. Michelle Lunato, who is the "MNF-I embed coordinator" at CentCom (the United States Central Command) in Kuwait. She sent along "a list of agencies that are currently embedded," and told me that "Typically we average about 50 some embeds a week." The list she sent had about 35 news organizations on it, including the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and a bunch of others. No names, though.

At this point I ran out of time and gave up the project for the time being. I had thought it would take me about 15 minutes to find out which reporters were embedded with U.S. troops. How wrong I was.

Phase II: February 2006

Three months later, in February 2006, I resumed the quest for a list of embedded reporters in Iraq by contacting the individual news organizations to ask them which of their reporters were embedded.

First I emailed the so-called "reader's representative" at my local daily newspaper, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. I asked not only for names of embedded reporters, but I also asked this:
"When the Star Tribune publishes wire stories, or other non-staff-generated stories, from Iraq, is it made clear whether or not the reporter responsible for a given story is, in fact, ‘embedded'? It seems to me that this information is an important part of the attribution of a story, and I am somewhat surprised that this information is not routinely included, either in the byline or elsewhere."

The Reader's Representative never responded. I waited ten days, then called her and asked the same questions over the phone. She never returned the call. (She must have been representing someone else that month.)

While I was at it, I emailed CentCom for an updated list of "agencies," which I received about a week later, along with some comments, including the following:

"...some embeds stay for weeks/months and some just for days... The main goal is to get as many media embedded as possible without affecting our missions. Obviously, the missions must come first before we can try and show what amazing efforts are being put forth."

Lt. Lunato added, "The embed program is a truly fascinating thing, at least to me. There is a lot of effort to get the stories out as there is so much happening here. Some of it is not all ‘sexy news stories' but crucial in rebuilding Iraq. Life is hard without water and electricity and everyday those things are improving here."

"Anyway," concluded the Lieutenant, "I don't mean to ramble, I just want you to know that the embed program is important. Are you planning on coming over? Or writing a story?"

Writing a story, I told her.

Finally, on February 23rd I called a few news outlets to ask which of their reporters were embedded. The Atlanta Constitution freely shared that information, as did the Los Angeles Times (they even gave me the email address of their embedded reporter). As I said, I never heard back from my local newspaper. On February 27th CentCom got back to me and offered to put me in touch with some of the currently-embedded reporters in Iraq. I declined, as that wasn't the point of my story.

Now for the two most interesting responses: One from the New York Times and the other from National Public Radio.

First the Times. On February 13th I called Toby Usnik, Executive Director of Public Relations at the New York Times, and asked him for the specific identities of any NYT embeds in Iraq "at the present time." Within an hour or two Mr. Usnik called back and said "you know that we do have a bureau in Baghdad," but that he had talked to the "foreign desk" and "they tell me that they have no embeds at this time."

That was a little hard to believe, since the Times' bureau chief in Baghdad had told Salon.com a month earlier that "relying on military transport and security [i.e. "embedding"] is the only safe and cost-effective way to report on Iraq, and the Times bureau is no exception to that."

NPR's response was even more interesting. Chad Campbell, NPR "Media Relations" guy, emailed me back and said, "Hi Jeff: I checked and our policy is to not give out information on reporter's (sic) that are currently embedded. I'm sorry that I can't help you. Take care, Chad."

That was the entire text of his email, so I wrote back, saying, "Just to be clear, I do not want any information about NPR's embeds. I simply want to know which NPR reporters have that status. I'm not looking for any details about location, or unit in which they are embedding, or anything that might possibly endanger anyone. I'm simply wanting to know the identity of reporters who are filing as embeds. Is this what you are saying cannot be divulged?"

Chad replied: "Correct, we do not provide the names of reporters who are filing as embeds."

And that was the end of that.

Having neither the time or the money to call the other 35+ news organizations on the CentCom list, I "spiked" the story, as we say in the journalism biz, and you are just hearing about it now. Sort of.

The point of this story of failure? When the time comes that I have enough Pledges to allow it, I will be able to take on AND FINISH stories like this. Please do your part: Make your Pledge of support today.