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Embedded reporting: too close to comfort?

One of the most dubious legacies of the invasion and occupation of Iraq is that war reporting will never be the same again. Journalists have travelled with troops before but this was the first time that they were effectively co-opted into the British and American armed forces, undermining a long and robust tradition of war journalism in the West.

Embedded reporting turned journalists into an extension of the army, governed by a rigid code of conduct that hugely cramped their independence. The deal was that they would get a ringside view of the war but, in exchange, they would not see, hear or report anything that the army with which they were embedded did not want them to see, hear or report.

The issue before the media was: what is better? Independence minus privileged access to the war front? Or access with stifling strings attached? From the fact that hundreds of war correspondents, including those from some of the world’s avowedly most independent news organisations, agreed to “embed,” the answer should be obvious: access at any cost.

But that has not settled the debate over the role of embedded reporting and questions continue to be asked about the moral and professional aspects of a practice that amounts to reducing journalists to vehicles of official propaganda. Are journalists happy with it? How far is such a practice consistent with the principles of independent and impartial journalism that organisations like the BBC lay so much emphasis on?

Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies has produced a study whose main conclusions are not likely to make happy reading for the critics of “embed” journalism (EJ). If anything, the report is likely to be seized by EJ’s cheer-leaders to claim vindication for their own position.

Most of the research discussed in the report, “Too Close to Comfort?” was commissioned by the BBC which, because of its tradition of relative objectivity, has been less enthusiastic about EJ than some other sections of the British media. The research, conducted by a team led by Professor Justin Lewis, who heads Cardiff University’s journalism school, is claimed to be the “most thorough analysis of the issue to date” and draws on interviews with what it calls “key actors” in the broadcast coverage of the Iraq invasion (reporters, editors and heads of news departments) and “key personnel” of the British Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon.

The research team is careful not to commit itself overtly to any position (though for the sake of pushing the debate forward, one would have liked it to take a stand) but it doesn’t take long to get the drift of the argument. Which, shorn of the many “ifs” and “buts”, is that critics of EJ are protesting too much, and those who believe that EJ is an attempt to supplant or substitute independent reporting are plainly wrong.

Indeed, according to the report, EJ has its advantages in that it provides journalists “unprecedented” access and protection; and contrary to what critics allege embed journalists are pretty much free to report what they like.

“While journalists, between them, provided us with a long list of complaints about the embed programme, the general consensus was that it worked reasonably well, and that degree of interference and censorship involved was lower than expected,” it says.

The report also rejects the idea that embed journalists were necessarily “in bed” with the British/U.S. military establishment and tailored their reporting to suit the official agenda. “Indeed our evidence suggests that the embeds provided a much more balanced account of events than some non-embedded reporters … Moreover in the British broadcast coverage, we did not find that embedded reporters were more likely to give a pro-government or pro-war version of events. On the contrary, some of the most celebratory reporting — such as the coverage of the ‘toppling of Saddam’ in Paradise Square — did not come from the embedded reporters,” it says.

Almost all key concerns about EJ are thrown out of court on the ground that they are “unwarranted.” Blithely dismissing widespread fears that EJ is a first step towards the idea of guided war reporting, the report claims that, on the contrary, it made journalists “less dependant” on military briefings. And, to that extent, they were “better able to offer independent accounts of military campaigns” thanks to their proximity to the theatre of action courtesy the access allowed by the army.

The notion that EJ is intended to be a substitute for “unilateral” reporting is wrong, the report contends arguing that all it does is offer an alternative to official military briefings. “… in practice, embedded reporting was less a substitute for unilateral reporting — which, because of its dangers, is limited in scope — than an alternative to military briefings. Thus, however one views the limits of the [embed] policy, the embeds [were] allowed a higher degree of independent scrutiny than would have been possible if journalists were largely dependant on prepared military briefings,” it says.

The problem with this analysis is that it ignores the fact that while official briefings are reported as such leaving readers/viewers in no doubt about the source of a story, embed reports do not come with a health warning. Instead, they are presented as the reporter’s own account which amounts to practising a form of deception on millions of ordinary people who may not be familiar with the technicalities of embed reporting.

The report skirts many of the awkward questions by simply claiming that these are not supported by “evidence.” The opening sentence sets the tone for what follows: a covert thumbs-up for EJ. This is how the report begins: “The evidence we have gathered makes it difficult to offer either a simple endorsement or a straightforward rejection of the role of embedded reporters. While we have found little evidence to support some of the prominent criticisms of the embed programme, our research has raised significant areas of concern.”

The fact, however, is that these “significant areas of concern” have no bearing on the larger issue (whether it is morally and professionally right for journalists to be coopted by invading armies) and relate to peripheral matters. They are no more than red-herrings —intended to create the impression of addressing “concerns” while distracting attention from the real issues. Barring minor caveats, the report is clearly tilted in favour of EJ. Which is fine. Honest research is expected to take positions after weighing the relevant “evidence.” And if the evidence favours EJ, so be it. What is annoying, in relation to the Cardiff report, is the coyness of its authors in declaring their hand openly.

More transparent and revealing is the second part of the report “The Journalists’ Perspective” which records the views of some of the embed journalists. We have reporters complaining about blatant attempts at censorship; about restrictions on their movements which one TV correspondent said amounted to censorship by other means; and about “breakdown” of trust between reporters and their army handlers.

Romilly Weeks of ITV News says: “It was a constant juggling act between being able to report what we wanted to report and not upsetting the officers. I got the impression quite early on that they would have liked us to be a branch of British forces broadcasting.”

Alex Thompson of Channel 4 News complains about attempts to restrict embed reporters’ movements to a point where it affected coverage.

“I’m still amazed by people who will tell you that they weren’t censored. Censorship is restricting someone’s freedom of movement as much as it is restricting what someone can and cannot film,” he says while his colleague Carl Dinnen recalls how he missed the chance to film an Iraqi encampment that had been attacked because he was “tied” to transport provided by his military unit.

On the other hand, the army was keen for TV journalists to film an alleged “terrorist training camp.” “He [the minder] took us to see some missile warhead … and some missile parts; we had no way of assessing the significance of them. They looked pretty old … He felt this all backed it up. I mean we broadcast it, but we were sceptical.”

These stories speak for themselves. Of course, there are also journalists who have positive things to say but, on balance, these stories don’t “stand up” the rosy assessment we are fed in the first part of the report. My question is this: if embed reporting did not yield any benefit to the British and American military authorities what was in it for them that prompted them to provide “unprecedented” access and protection to the media? Americans would be the first to agree that there are no free lunches. So, there must be a catch somewhere. Lewis. Eh, Cardiff?

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