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National Security and the Press Part Three – The Role of Embedding

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A watchdog press, unfortunately, will often invite the government leash. To the extent that the press adopts an adversarial position vis-à-vis the government, it makes many government officials consider it a nuisance to their agenda. If unconstrained by the First Amendment and the courts, government officials have often turned to regulation of the media to prevent this “nuisance.” As Justice Douglas has noted, when the press does its job under the watchdog model, “the press is often engaged in projects that bring anxiety or even fear to the bureaucracies, departments, or officials of government. The whole weight of government is therefore often brought to bear against a paper or a reporter.” Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 722 (1972) (Douglas, J., dissenting). This phenomenon has been noted by commentators whose work suggests that the subjects of unwanted media attention often target the press, criticizing their investigative methods as offensive and seeking to curtail them. See Sandra F. Chance, The First Amendment In The New Millenium: How A Shifting Paradigm Threatens The First Amendment and Free Speech, 23 U. ARK. LITTLE ROCK L. REV. 169, 179 (2000) (describing intense public criticism of the methods of investigative reporters who documented Watergate, the Civil Rights struggle, and the Vietnam War). The desire to avoid criticism and to control the discussion of one’s actions is a basic human emotion, and it just as surely exists in the military context as in the civilian government. When investigative journalism comes into conflict with national security, members of the military have advocated and might turn to measures to control information that can only be described as draconian (such as seizure of cameras and film, exclusion of the media from specific sites, and prohibition or delay of live television broadcasts). See Captain Porcher L. Taylor, III, The Installation Commander Versus an Aggressive News Media in an On-Post Terrorist Incident: Avoiding the Constitutional Collision, 1986 ARMY LAW. 19, 27-29 (1986) (analyzing a scenario involving a terrorist attack and concluding that each of the listed activities could be constitutional).

III. Issues Regarding Embedded Journalism

The rise of embedded journalism as a new method of media coverage of conflicts has generated substantial controversy about this new relationship between journalists and the government. In coverage of past conflicts, journalists have largely relied on outside, independent reporting to find out information. Joe Strupp, Newspapers Pull Reporters From Embed Slots, EDITOR & PUBLISHER, April 28, 2003. In the 2003 Iraq War, however, journalists were given an opportunity to cover the war from the front lines, traveling along with the military to gain firsthand information about the war. At its peak, there were nearly 800 journalists embedded with U.S. military units. Id. The number dwindled rapidly after major combat operations ended, but nearly 200 reporters remained with military units to cover their continuing activities. Id. Having so many journalists follow the conflict firsthand was an unprecedented change in military coverage of warfare.

The rise of embedded journalism as a new method of media coverage of conflicts has generated substantial controversy about this new relationship between journalists and the government. In coverage of past conflicts, journalists have largely relied on outside, independent reporting to find out information. Id. The embedded media program, like any change, has generated both positives and negatives for media coverage. This section will analyze the costs and benefits of shifting toward embedded journalism as a major source of information about war.

A. Benefits of the Current Approach

Embedded journalism has been credited with a number of potential benefits and lauded as a new method of journalism that will revolutionize the coverage of wartime events. Proponents claim that embedding provides accurate, frontline coverage of warfare that could not be obtained through other sources. Regardless of the criticisms leveled at embedded journalism, it is plain that it offers some important potential improvements in war coverage.

One major benefit of embedded journalism may be an increase in the safety of reporters. Of over a dozen reporters killed during fighting in the Iraq War, only two were embedded with military units. Martin Bell, Media: Say No to News on Tap, THE INDEPENDENT, Dec. 16, 2003 Five reporters were killed by American fire, and they presumably would not have risked this danger had they been embedded with American units. Id. The reduction in danger that these statistics suggest adds several benefits to any military embedding program. First, the lives of reporters are protected to a greater degree in war zones, certainly a beneficial development. While a complete separation of reporters and the military during times of war may preserve the independence of the two groups, that very independence can be dangerous when the military is unaware of what journalists are doing or unable to distinguish them from the enemy. Second, an increase in the safety of reporters may persuade more of them to enter the area and report on the conflicts. This could provide benefits to the values behind freedom of speech by increasing the number of diverse voices with access to firsthand information about the battlefield. Of course, these benefits of protection are contingent on the American military holding a decisive advantage in terms of military force in whatever conflict is being covered. Should America get involved in a war with an enemy with greater military capabilities, it would obviously be more dangerous to be paired with American soldiers than to operate independently and under the protective banner of neutrality. Frank Smyth, On Assignment: Covering Conflicts Safely, Report, COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS, 2003, (noting that embedded journalists who wear the uniforms of combatants can easily be mistakenly attacked). It may thus be inappropriate to make generalizations about the safety benefits to reporters without advanced knowledge about the specific conflict in which a reporter will be embedded.

Many supporters of embedding have also pointed out that a flawed or restrictive embedded journalism program may still provide more public access to information than the prior model of indirect information filtered through military bureaucracy. During the War in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf War, information was dramatically less available then under the current embedding system because reporters could usually collect only what information the military chose to release. Howard Kurtz, Front-Line Reports Mostly Accurate, Media Group Finds, WASHINGTON POST, April 3, 2003, at A29. At least one independent analysis has shown that information reported by embedded journalists was 94 percent accurate. Id. One should keep in mind, however, that factual accuracy may be wholly irrelevant in trying to determine the existence of bias or in answering allegations that the program turns the media into a propaganda wing of the government. These are not allegations of a problem in accurately reporting facts but rather are allegations of the propriety of which facts were selected to be reported. For those who adhere to the informer model of the media, reporting the facts about the war is perfectly adequate – so long as the public is more informed than it would be absent the embedding program, the public is being served by its existence. For those who adhere to the watchdog approach, there is still the nagging question of whether accuracy alone serves the needs of the public.

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