Embedded in Controversy

It's suddenly become fashionable to dump on the embedded reporters.

They're tools of the military. They're part of the Pentagon propaganda machine. They only churn out good news. They're not allowed to report anything negative.

Well, we've been watching Scott Pelley and Walt Rodgers and David Bloom and Ted Koppel and the rest, and much of this yammering strikes us as unfair.

Yes, journalists tend to bond with the people they're covering when they're crawling in the sand with them. Yes, the initial stories were overwhelmingly positive: Mothers go to war. Hometown folks go to war. Brave Americans doing their job. CNN's Kyra Phillips even asked a couple of pilots to give a thumbs-up for the cameras before taking off from an aircraft carrier.

But in the past few days, as the embedded correspondents have come under fire along with their units, the news has been anything but good. Television screens have been filled with reports of casualties and friendly-fire incidents and questions about the long supply line to Baghdad that is inviting some Iraqi counterattacks.

In short, it's old-fashioned war reporting, but with razzle-dazzle technology that brings it into our living rooms in real time. We saw an MSNBC reporter stick a microphone in the face of a soldier who had just been shot. Is that "positive" reporting? Or is that the sort of thing that gives us a feel for what life is like on these sandstorm-whipped battlefields?

If anything, the reports about individual units under attack may create the mistaken impression that the war effort is going to hell in a handbasket, rather than rolling inexorably toward Baghdad. So how do you square that with the notion that the embeds are, excuse the impression, in the tank?

Besides, what is the alternative? Keeping reporters away from the troops – unless they travel Iraq on their own and risk getting their backsides shot off? Reduce the flow of news to that dispensed at official briefings, as was largely the case in the first Gulf War and Afghanistan?

It's only been a week. Let's give the 600 embedded journalists a chance to do their jobs. There will be plenty of time to beat up on them later on.

A USA Today piece questions whether the embeds are being used to "obscure the horrors of war.

"Thanks to embedding restrictions, which give troop commanders great leeway in what can be reported, and an unspoken rule that negative stories might be viewed as unpatriotic, opponents say that what viewers have seen thus far is largely a sanitized war, despite some of the most vivid footage ever sent from the front lines in real time.

"The reporting, they say, is playing into the Pentagon's public relations game plan. If the ground war gets tougher – if the Iraqis use chemical weapons, for example – it remains to be seen how clear a picture viewers will see."

Skeptics include "60 Minutes" correspondents Morley Safer and Andy Rooney, "who flew on bombing missions over Germany in World War II as a correspondent for The Stars & Stripes [and] says that embedding can tinge a journalist's judgment.

"'It's very difficult to write anything critical about a guy you're going to have breakfast with the next morning,' Rooney says. 'Ernie Pyle didn't write any stories about cowards in World War II, even though there were some. I suspect in this war, we're going to get a lot of stories about heroes.'"

But wait: "That said, Rooney and Safer say they've seen excellent reporting."

Which sort of knocks down the thesis of the piece.

Slate's Jack Shafer sees the embeds as cheerleaders:

"The coverage, so far, has depicted U.S. soldiers as brave, enthusiastic, and conscientious warriors who, as they bomb and shoot their way to Baghdad, uphold the highest professional standards of the art of war. These dispatches are believable, even though the video cameras and reporters' notebooks glean only slivers from the front line.

"The wide range of U.S. and international 'embeds,' as the journalists themselves are now called, brings substantial credibility to the war as independent truth-tellers. It's easy for armchair journalists and stateside press critics to ridicule the likes of NBC's David Bloom as he joyously cruises across the Iraq desert seated on the fore of an armored vehicle like he's John Wayne lassoing rhinos from the front fender of a truck in Howard Hawks' Hatari! But Bloom and others are strictly following the rules of access set down by the Pentagon – don't endanger the operation security of the troops – while still reporting truthfully.

"Because the war on Iraq is still young, the embed reports from the front are mostly variations on the themes, 'Hey, I'm still alive!' and, 'Hey, those Iraqis are extremely dead!' which must warm the hearts of the chain of command. The honest shock and awe expressed by the embeds' reports translate into victories for the U.S. military in their concerted propaganda campaign against Iraq, its allies, and its sympathizers. The real-time reporting by the embeds of American military might – as well as of American military restraint – fortifies the United States government's desired image as a just yet vengeful power."

Roger Simon sees television putting on something of a show:

"'In war,' Torie Clarke, the Pentagon spokesperson said the other day, 'bad things happen and people die.' That statement is stark, simple and true.

"But our media don't want you to believe it.

"They want you to believe that war is about spectacular explosions over Baghdad, video-game pictures of tanks being blown up, and celebrities like David Bloom riding in that M-88 tank recovery vehicle.

"I don't blame Bloom for the latter. He is just doing his job. TV is a celebrity-creating medium and if you get on TV a lot, you become a celebrity.

"But I think a lot of us were hoping that embedding journalists with the troops might lead to more information on and perspective from ordinary soldiers. We are getting very little of that. Instead, we are getting stars."

Of course, Bloom could have stayed in his cushy "Weekend Today" job rather than riding around in sandstorms, which messes up his anchor-hair.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is in the sensory-overload camp:

"For the last week, we have had the unprecedented experience of watching a war unfold in real time. But analysts maintain that television's ride-along reporters are too close to the story they are covering. And the unfiltered torrent of images they are sending back – NBC anchor Tom Brokaw has likened it to 'drinking from a fire hydrant' – has been overwhelming, leaving viewers confused about the course of the conflict.

"Though viewership is up – 300 percent for the cable news channels and 10 percent overall for broadcast since March 19 – some experts feel that viewers would be better served by more concise and analytical reports.

"'Up to this point, you could very . . . effectively digest 24 hours of coverage into an hour of network or cable,' says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication."

Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten doesn't think much of the Fox coverage:

"Fox News simply has wrapped itself in the flag and makes no effort to distinguish between its journalism and the U.S. war effort. Fox executives can be pleased that their approach has allowed the network to hold the lead in cable news ratings; the rest of us can be relieved that viewers who want that sort of thing will be too busy having their prejudices confirmed to bother the rest of us. With some notable exceptions, meanwhile, the British Broadcasting Corp. – heard nightly on many PBS and NPR stations – has continued to elevate traditional reportorial skepticism to near-toxic levels."

If you've been wondering why the British coverage has been so different than the American journalism – and who hasn't – check out our report in The Washington Post on the BBC.

The New York Times's Michael Gordon addresses a different kind of television question:

"The most surprising thing about Saddam Hussein's televised addresses this last week was that the Iraqi leader was on television at all.

"During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Iraq's television tower was attacked at the outset of the air war. . . . The Bush administration's decision not to attack Iraq's television broadcast capabilities at the outset of this war is a telling one. It seems to reflect the calculation that Mr. Hussein's regime was so brittle it would quickly fall. Bush planners appear to have left television off the initial target list because they wanted to use it to administer Iraq immediately after the war and to limit the damage to civilian infrastructure.

"Reports from Iraq, however, suggest that the American restraint was seen by many Iraqis as an indication of Mr. Hussein's resilience, undermining the allied message that his days were numbered."

So much for that plan.

A Wall Street Journal editorial approves of the media coverage:

"On the early returns, we'd say the 'embedding' policy looks like one of those gambles that may work for all parties--the Pentagon, the media and the public. An important debate in recent years has been about the emerging gulf between the all-volunteer military culture and broader civilian culture; one rarely met the other. The risk was that a warrior caste would emerge that grew resentful of a society that didn't appreciate the dangers they face or the sacrifices they make.

"This ringside, real-time witness to war may do more to span that gulf than anything since the draft. One of the things that has come out so far in Iraq is the 'we' that slips out so often from the lips of the reporters now risking their own lives in the field. That's only natural when you are sharing the same foxhole, being shot at with the same bullets and, as we have sadly seen, being killed along with the soldiers.

"What we are all getting is a crash course in the ways and means of the modern volunteer force. Yes, journalists embedded in combat units are under some constraints not to disclose troop movements and the like. But no one is asking them to shade the truth. And their interviews with soldiers, both officers and enlisted, reveal in nearly every case a professional military that is remarkably well trained, well disciplined and able to explain what they do. And also risking their lives for us.

"The 24/7 exposure is not without risks. At the top of the list has to be the recognition that the camera does lie, even unintentionally. The depressing weekend news--a firefight that caught our troops here, the American POWs there, the fragging of U.S. troops apparently by one of their own--are all real things that happened. But while the camera can record them accurately, the one thing it cannot do is provide the larger perspective. So a single ugly battle can mislead about the pace of the broader war."

The president, at a Florida air force base, made a deletion in his speech that was noted by everyone, including the Boston Globe:

"As the first week of combat in Iraq drew to a close, President Bush delivered an extensive progress report yesterday, telling troops here that the war is 'far from over' even as he sought to bolster the military and the nation with a promise that the campaign will end in triumph. . . .

"But with the drive to Baghdad slowed by intense resistance from Iraqi troops, Bush also tried to scale back expectations for swift success – and abandoned the claim that the campaign is 'ahead of schedule,' an announcement his press secretary had said he would make."

The Chicago Tribune has this take on the speech:

"In another time, President Bush's appearance in Tampa yesterday would have passed for a campaign rally. He gave an impassioned speech, music blared, flags waved, the crowd cheered. He even worked a rope line at the end.

"The similarities are more than coincidental. In many ways, the administration is engaged in the ultimate political campaign, with the information war emerging on a track nearly parallel to the one being waged with weapons. . . .

"In both a military and political setting, one imperative is to establish a set of expectations and a clear, direct campaign message. The Pentagon stumbled on that front, creating an early impression of a quick, decisive conflict, a characterization it has since calibrated to fit Bush's rhetoric of yesterday. . . .

"Only a short time after the images of dead Iraqi soldiers were being broadcast to the Arab world, the coalition countered with pictures of humanitarian assistance being distributed. Just like a campaign, surrogates are dispatched to make the president's case. Yesterday Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared live on the Arab satellite network Al Jazeera and on Abu Dhabi television."

National Review's David Frum has had it with the naysayers:

"Can we all please stop nattering at the guys doing the driving? In six days, Alliance armed forces have reached Baghdad, fought and won at least three major battles (one of them in a sandstorm!), while suffering fewer casualties to date than were lost in the first Gulf War – a war that everyone now remembers as a decisive American victory.

"The Alliance has achieved all this without the massive preliminary air barrage of the Gulf War – and despite the added challenge of making the wellbeing of the enemy's civilian population one of their very highest war aims. We can't call this success until the war is over – but can we please put a stop to the anxious fretting?

"Some of the anxious are saying that they're entitled to fret because the war isn't the 'cakewalk' they claim President Bush promised them. Well, I never heard President Bush promise a cakewalk. He made no promises that the war would be easy – and when he spoke about the war in private, he always stressed that digging Saddam out of power would be a bloody business."

The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last says Saddam is as bad as advertised:

"Tuesday night American forces discovered atropine stashes in a hospital that was being used as a headquarters for Iraqi forces. The day before, they discovered chem suits and cipro on an Iraqi officer. Why would Saddam spend money on these protections for his military? He knows the United States won't use biological or nerve agents against him. The only reason for Iraqis to be equipped with these protections is in case Saddam decides to use chemical or biological weapons. (You'll remember that for the last 18 months Saddam has insisted that he doesn't have any of these WMD.)

"Any leader who weighs his options and allows expedience to determine whether or not to use these weapons isn't the type of man who should be allowed to stay in power. But then again, we knew that.

"Likewise, the surprised outrage over Iraqi treatment of American POWs strikes me as dumb. Of course Saddam Hussein isn't going to hew to the letter--let alone the spirit--of the Geneva Conventions. If he was the type of ruler who treated the Geneva Conventions as sacred, we probably wouldn't be at war with him."

Finally, the New York Post carries a story with an expletive deleted:

"When President Bush flew to Florida yesterday, Air Force One's menu featured 'stuffed freedom toast' since F- - - -h is now a dirty word, but the broader question is how to fry the F- - - -h for stabbing America in the back on Iraq.

"'I think the Iraqis will do that,' says Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, suggesting a liberated Iraq's new leaders will cancel France's highly profitable oil and business deals with Saddam Hussein since France tried to block liberation.

"Another option for the United States: Stop treating France as a full-fledged member of NATO when it refuses to take part in NATO military operations – and do most NATO business through its military arm where France has no vote and no clout.

"A U.S. official says treating France as irrelevant may be the best revenge given France's pretensions to world power. 'The worst thing you can do to a Frenchman is ignore him – and spend a lot of time talking about the brave Bulgarians,' the official said."

But we bet there will be some F- - - -h kissing and making up.