Journalists gather information in a variety of ways: They plow through public records; they talk with people on the telephone.
For sheer accuracy and effectiveness, though, nothing beats firsthand observation.
So, with war on the horizon, Sentinel reporter Roger Roy and photographer Hilda Perez have gone to Kuwait to see for themselves — and report to their readers — what’s going on. The first of their dispatches appeared on Wednesday’s front page, with an account of attitudes that vary and gasoline prices that don’t.
Future word from the desert could be more somber.
Roy and Perez are participating in a new program called “embedding,” in which several hundred jounalists are attached to specific military units to cover the war with Iraq. It’s less than ideal.
But, as their editor, Ann Hellmuth, observed, “We get more by going than not going.”
Journalists historically have covered armed conflict but never quite like this. During the past century’s world wars and in Korea and Vietnam, reporters and photographers traveled with the military, hopping from unit to unit, hitching rides wherever they could and sending reports back home about what they saw.
During the Vietnam War, though, television brought the fighting right into people’s living rooms — and they didn’t much like it. In fact, the ensuing protests led eventually to a sea change in American politics and a withdrawal from the war.
Since then, with each conflict, the military has found new ways to keep the news media at bay, after which it has studied the problem and agreed to greater access — only to change the rules when fighting arose. This time is no different — except for the method.
“Embedding” calls for Roy to travel with a transportation unit that’s part of the First Marine Expeditionary Force’s service support group, providing supplies to combat units. Perez will be with the Third Army Infantry Division. And that’s where they’ll stay throughout the fighting — which has the potential to result in a very narrow view of the war.
“While we’ll see a lot of what our specific outfits are doing,” Roy explained from his hotel in Kuwait City, “we’ll probably know almost nothing of what’s going on over the horizon.”
The arrangement also promises to put great pressure on the journalists’ impartiality.
Of course, they are there to report about — not undermine — the U.S. military. So, although their reporting will not have to undergo a security review, reporters and photographers have agreed to a list of 50 rules — some common sense but others restrictions by which few journalists would abide in other circumstances.
Candor, too, could become a casualty when journalists live with, and depend for safety on, the same people about whom they are reporting.
“Something I wonder,” Roy said, “is to what extent the news organizations — not the reporters in the field — will feel they owe the Pentagon for the way this whole ‘embedding’ process has gone.” He noted the intense, and effective, lobbying by television networks and big news organizations for “tip of the spear” assignments.
It seems that the news media will have access to the war. Whether “embedding” results in an accurate portrayal of the conflict remains to be seen.
