Review Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson, embedded, The Media At War In Iraq, an oral history, The Lyons Press, 2003

 

Katovsky, Bill and Carlson, Timothy, embedded, The Media At War In Iraq, an oral history, The Lyons Press, 2003

 

Embedded, The Media At War In Iraq, an oral history is an anthology of 51 journalists and others who were involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Some of the reporters were embedded with U.S. and British forces. Others went into Iraq on their own and were called unilaterals. Like any collection the stories vary widely from the exciting to the mundane.

 

Embedding journalists was a new initiative by the U.S. military. During the invasion of Afghanistan the U.S. forces and reporters worked completely separate. By the time of Iraq the Pentagon decided to change course and have reporters travel with its military. The idea was that this would give good coverage to the war and the army and Marines.

 

That’s what happened as many embedded journalists said they bonded with the troops they were with and told their stories. Mike Cerre of Globe TV, ABC and Nightline was a former Marine officer in Vietnam. Marines came to him for advice and insight before the war started. That was to be expected as they spent weeks together and completely relied upon the army and Marines to get into Iraq.

 

The stories varied greatly. Some were in front line units and wrote stories about combat. Dr. Sanja Gupta of CNN and Time was at a forward medical base with Navy doctors. He was a neurosurgeon and actually operated on 5 patients both American and Iraqi who were shot in the head. Michael Wolf of New York Magazine was at a military base in Doha where he only heard briefings. He asked a general what the point of being there was since he could get the same news if he was back in the United States. He became a villain to conservatives as the Right Wing media attacked him and he got thousands of hate emails as a result.

 

Unilaterals had a totally different experience. John Burns the New York Times’ Baghdad Bureau Chief wrote about what was happening with Iraqis and especially the crimes of Saddam Hussein. Right before the invasion for instance, Saddam issued an amnesty and emptied Abu Ghraib prison. Burns met with Iraqi families who flooded the facility looking for their lost relatives, That led to a story about the abuses and killings inside the prison. Scott Johnson of Newsweek drove into Iraq with two other cars full of journalists who ran into an Iraqi ambush. Johnson’s car was hit and he crashed. He hid in a ditch until U.S. forces found him. The other two cars were driven off the road and they had to run through the night to get away from Iraqi soldiers.

 

One of the most interesting accounts came from Amr El-Kakhy of Al Jazeera. He was embedded with the Marines and believed he was neglected. He was not invited to briefings that other outlets went to. The Marines wouldn’t talk to him as much as other journalists. He complained to his bosses who called the Pentagon. One U.S. officer told him that Al Jazeera had a bad reputation and that was why the Marines were being uncooperative.

 

Unfortunately about half of the chapters are rather boring. Some were embedded with units that did little. Others talked about themselves more than what they went through in Iraq. This is to be expected in a collection. There is always going to be a great difference from chapter to chapter.

 

Overall, there are more good sections than bad ones in embedded. It gives the reader a wide range of stories of what it was like to be a reporter during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The main point was that the Pentagon got what it wanted by embedding journalists which was a wave of positive reporting on the troops. This helped the Bush administration maintain popular support for the war. It also humanized the war for the American public. Unfortunately, Iraqis did not get the same coverage. Some of the unilaterals tried to get the Iraqi side of the story but they were simply overwhelmed by the number of embeds. This bias towards the American point of view continued all the way until the end of the U.S. occupation.

 

Link to all of Musings On Iraq’s book reviews listed by topic