Study finds Pentagon benefited from U.S. media ‘embed’ program in Iraq.

[deminks]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/18/study-finds-pentagon-benefited-from-us-media-embed-program-in-iraq/

Writing in the American Sociological Association’s “Contexts” magazine, sociologist Andrew M. Lindner found that journalists embedded with American troops during the invasion of Iraq “emphasized military successes more often than they covered consequences for Iraqi citizens” which represented a “communications victory” for the Bush administration:

The embedded program proved to be a Pentagon victory because it kept reporters focused on the horrors facing the troops, not the horrors of the civilian war experience. <…> The end result: a communications victory for an administration that hoped to build support for the war by depicting it as a successful mission with limited cost.

http://contexts.org/articles/spring-2008/controlling-the-media-in-iraq/11

In 2003, nearly 600 journalists working for news agencies from around the world traveled alongside U.S. and coalition forces as they invaded Iraq. The Pentagon’s embedded journalists program allowed reporters for the first time to attach themselves to military units. While Bush Administration officials hailed it for its intimate access to soldiers’ lives, media watchdogs criticized its often restrictive nature and publicly worried reporters would do little more than serve up rosy stories about soldiers’ courage and homesickness.

Critics also argued the embedding program was essential to the administration’s attempt to build popular support for the war in Iraq. Several influential members of the Pentagon leadership and the administration believed the media contributed to defeat in the Vietnam War by demoralizing the American public with coverage of atrocities and seemingly futile guerilla warfare. They hoped to avoid a similar result in Iraq by limiting journalists’ coverage of darker stories on combat, the deaths of Iraqi civilians, and property damage. As media commentator Marvin Kalb noted, the embedding program was “part of the massive, White House-run strategy to sell…the American mission in this war.”

(end snips)

[deminks]

1. kick for the evening.

[Rage for Order]

2. Seems logical to me

It's easy for us to sit over here in the States and armchair quarterback everything, or, by the same token, for a reporter to sit in a hotel room in Baghdad and just report stories that come in from local fixers. However, once the reporter spends an extended period of time with a unit, doing both the mundane and the extremely dangerous, their perceptions are bound to change. They'll see the troops as other human beings doing what they have to do to survive in a shitty situation. Also, since the troops are keeping the reporter alive in hostile territory, the reporter is bound to be less critical of them than she would if the reporter was sitting in the lobby of the Baghdad Hilton waiting for someone to bring a story to her.