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http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/070/nation/New_rules_of_engagement_between_media_and_military+.shtmlhttp://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/070/nation/New_rules_of_engagement_between_media_and_military+.shtml
'EMBEDDING'
New rules of engagement between media and military
By Scott Bernard Nelson, Globe Staff, 3/11/2003
KUWAIT CITY -- The Hilton Resort was just beginning to stir yesterday morning when Army reservist James Johnson began yelling, ''Gas, gas, gas!'' at a dozen journalists lounging next to the tennis courts. The reporters lunged for their gas masks, but it was clear most had no idea what to do with them.
Johnson, the manager of an Illinois outdoor store who was called up for duty as part of the huge troop buildup in this Persian Gulf nation, told the reporters they would have been dead if there had been a real chemical or biological weapons attack. He spent the next 45 minutes showing them the proper way to put on a gas mask -- and how to inject themselves with an antidote in case they were too slow donning protective gear.
''You're all my soldiers now,'' Sergeant Johnson barked at the correspondents. ''I get all my soldiers back alive, so my job is to make sure you all get back alive.''
Whatever happens on the battlefield, the looming conflict in Iraq is providing new rules of engagement between the military and the media. For the first time, the Pentagon has allowed individual journalists to live with and cover specific battalions for the duration of the conflict.
Among other things, that means well-fed reporters accustomed to sitting behind desks are learning to live like grunts. Most are preparing to sleep on the ground, eat canned meals, and live in the same clothes for weeks.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, has to learn to live with hundreds of newshounds existing with its troops day-in and day-out. The bulk of the more than 500 ''embedded'' reporters, photographers, and television crew members engaged in the new process will check out of comfortable Kuwait City hotels today to join their units near the Iraqi border.
A history of suspicion on the parts of both journalists and the military will follow close behind.
''I'm asking everyone to come to this with an open mind,'' said Marine Lieutenant Colonel Rick Long, the man responsible for placing 170 journalists with his service's combat troops in Kuwait. ''Some reporters come into the situation as cynics, having already presupposed what the military is and isn't. Likewise, the military has a tendency not to give the media a fair shake. That's what I'm up against.''
The Department of Defense announced the embedding policy last fall, surprising veteran war correspondents who had seen the US military grow increasingly hostile to journalists since the Vietnam War -- and vice versa. Some wonder whether the new system is healthy.
''The dynamic tension still very much needs to exist between the reporter and the military,'' said Marquette University journalism professor Philip Seib. ''The Defense Department is trying to have the press version of a preemptive strike by offering to bring you into the family. The problem is that once you're in the family, you have to obey the family rules.''
The ground rules all embedded journalists have to sign before joining their assigned battalion include restrictions on when and what they can report. The details of military actions can only be described in general terms. And journalists agree not to write at all about possible future missions or about classified weapons and information they might find.
The Army has told reporters assigned to some of its battalions they might not be able to broadcast or file reports in the crucial first 24 to 72 hours of any invasion. Satellite communication from the battlefields will be jammed. Many journalists believe the restrictions amount to censorship. Long said the ground rules were written only to avoid jeopardizing the lives of troops.
''We fully expect the media to report good and bad things about the military,'' he said. ''We will not impede the reporting for any other reason than operational security. Embarrassment or humiliation of the Marine Corps [or other services] will not be a reason to exclude access.''
Bob Arnott, a veteran NBC News correspondent who also covered the Gulf War in 1991, predicted ''a tremendous test of wills'' between some journalists and battalion commanders over where to draw those lines on access. But he said the more critical issue for news organizations is that some reporters are inexperienced, and ''a lot of them won't have any idea what they're looking at.''
Matthew Fisher, Moscow bureau chief for the National Post in Canada and a foreign correspondent for two decades, said the media should use both embedded reporters and journalists operating on their own.
Journalism professor Seib said he's withholding judgment on the kinder, gentler Pentagon approach until after any war in Iraq is fought. ''From the public's standpoint, it's a question of the good faith of the Pentagon and the skill of the journalists to get around any inappropriate constraints.''
This story ran on page A8 of the Boston Globe on 3/11/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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