Why the Media Really Won't Embed

I’ll get back to regular posting soon, but there are a couple of things I want to get out before I go back to combing the internet for you all.

Up next…a book review. A week ago I was asked by FBS Associates if I wanted an Advance Copy of Bill Murphy Jr’s new book “In A Time of War - The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002” Of course I said yes. That book arrived just days before I departed for Vegas and the 2008 Milblog Conference. I finished that book on the return flight and my review of it is forthcoming. It’s a book you won’t want to miss.

But first I want to talk about something that Christian Lowe said during the final panel discussion - The New Cadre of War Reporters at the 2008 Milblog Conference. He stated that every journalist in the world wants to get to Iraq, because it’s the biggest story of the generation, and that he was mad he couldn’t get there until he could.

I can understand that sentiment, but when the talk turned towards the lack of imbeds and the use of stringers by news agencies instead of actually sending their journalists there, not only because of the danger but also because of the cost, I became very interested. I would like to offer up another possible alternative for this phenomenon that wasn’t put forth by me but by one of those journalists.

A while ago I took to task a longtime Washington Post journalist that had retired to the quite suburbia that is Frederick County, Maryland. He kept himself busy writing about local politics, but it wasn’t until he took on a local Marine hero and the Surge Plan that I really took notice. He wrote a column titled “Senseless War” in which he stated that: “since some retired military officers are disagreeing with the prosecution of the war, that the war is somehow senseless in its outcome.”

Mr. Volz read that post of mine and we had to come to the conclusion that we would always disagree on this topic. As it turns out, history was on my side and the Surge is now considered a great success. Mr. Volz still though believes that it was the wrong strategy at the wrong time, and a year ago he was adamant that it would be another Bush Failure.

So what does this have to do with Christian’s assertion that every journalist is chomping at the bit to get to Iraq? Well as it turns out, Mr. Volz and I live in the same neighborhood. One summer day, I had the boys at the community pool, expelling their extra energy while I sat down to re-read my copy of Blogs of War. I was sitting there wearing my Military.com hat from the inaugural Milblog Conference (Thanks Ward, I love that hat) reading my book when who should sit down in the chaise next to me, but Mr. Volz. I of course recognized him right away, after all; his picture is right there in the byline of all of his columns, he of course didn’t have a clue who I was, until that is he noticed my hat…and then the book.

After introducing myself to him, we had a long conversation about the state of reporting as it relates to Iraq. He felt that the reporting was right on target, it was in his words, “the purpose of the media to report on what is happening.” He was surprised when I agreed with him, where I took him to task was what they were actually reporting, no where in the media’s narrative about Iraq was mention of any success of US forces on the ground, and when they did mention the success they always added on to the report, usually in the first couple of paragraphs a mention of the current US body count or some other grievous point about the war. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here: “Why do you only want to hear the rosy side of the story, what is it about death that you don’t like?” I replied, “I don’t want to hear just the good stuff, I expect that in war time there will be death and injuries, what I don’t approve of is the wholesale ignoring of the good things that are being done, the successes that US forces are accomplishing for simply another story that trots out the body count of US dead.”

The conversation went on like this for a good half-hour until the topic of imbeds came up, it was there that he said something that cemented in my mind the role the media felt they had to play in the current state of war reporting. When asked if he thought we should have more imbedded reporters he thought for a moment and then replied, “No.”

I was shocked that a long-time journalist would suggest that we shouldn’t be sending our future Pulitzer Prize winners to Iraq and Afghanistan to report on the war as it unfolded. Hs reply was both stunning and revealing. “Reporters should not imbed because then they might become sympathetic to the troops they are with, and with that sympathy so goes their objectiveness.”

Now think about what he is saying there for a minute. He isn’t saying that the journalist has to stay objective, detached, from what he is reporting otherwise if something bad happens they may not be able to report it. At the time I thought he simply meant that if one of the troopers with which he was imbedded was killed it may be too difficult to report the details of it, but now I think he meant something else entirely.

Now before I come out and say what it is that I think Mr. Volz really meant by his statement, let me preface this by saying that I hope that I am completely wrong about what I am about to reveal, but the actions and course of action by the media all points to the same conclusion.

Let us review an incident that happened recently in Afghanistan that provides us some insight into what I think Mr. Volz really meant. By now we are all aware that US Forces in Afghanistan were tricked into bombing a party of a rival warlord on the intelligence that they were Taliban. At the time of the incident thought the world media jumped on the false story that they intentionally bombed civilians completely ignoring the reports of Col. Oliver North USMC (Ret) who happened to be on the scene of the incident with his Fox News crew. Col North filmed the entire incident after the US forces he was imbedded with took fire from the village; during the engagement, US Forces asked for and received permission to call in an airstrike on the village. Col North continued to film as they bombed the village and was there when US forces went through the village later documenting the damage. No where in that video did they see evidence that would lead them to believe that they hit only civilians. Yes, civilian’s were present but not in the numbers suggested by the initial media reports. Of course, some of us expect this to happen since our enemy cares not for the local population and regularly hides among the populace, knowing that US Forces will hesitate to attack them there for fear of civilian casualties.

The story was reporting in the media with graphic and defaming headlines, along the lines of: US Forces Kill 90 civilians, etc. (If you are interested The Long War Journal has a long series on this event.) The Afghan government even got in on the story demanding that the Rules of Engagement (ROE) be re-written. Within days the US Military Command refuted the events as reported in the media and released their data on the event which completely contradicted the events in the paper, and launched a secondary investigation. It was this investigation that revealed that the intelligence that led Coalition Forces to the village in question was, well questionable. Despite the fact that the tribal leader and his men attacked coalition forces as they approached the village only helped paint the intelligence as valid. The end result was still the same. Coalition Forces crushed those who fired upon them.

But how the media reacted to the story is what we should be talking about. They didn’t as so many are wont to say, checked all their facts and verified the story; they simply ran it as is. No questions asked. Was there some other nefarious plot at play here? I think so.

You see, it’s my opinion that the mainstream media is directly at odds with the US Military. The US Military they reason is full of misfits and murderers and to embed as Christian Lowe has done would cloud this belief in what we know as America’s Greatest. The media isn’t afraid of getting close to the troopers they embed with because they fear getting attached to them and then losing them. They fear embedding with the military and learning the truth about what it is they actually do, because to do so would shatter their belief that it’s not a matter of “If” they will do something wrong, al a Abu Ghraib but rather a matter of “When.”

Haditha, proven to be nothing more than propaganda by the enemy was accepted whole cloth by the media, not because they were concerned about the supposed war crime being committed but rather because they expected that it was true from the start. They expect that our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are really nothing more than government sanctioned criminals. Hired killers, who are more than willing to murder, loot and rape the populace at large, not because they are told to so, but because they can’t help but not to. To them; those who serve are nothing more then mental cases being given an outlet to act out on a grand scale. And it is there job as journalists to prove this to the American people, and the world.

This, in my opinion is what Mr. Volz meant when he stated: “Reporters should not imbed because then they might become sympathetic to the troops they are with, and with that sympathy so goes their objectiveness.” He wasn’t saying he feared losing a friend with whom he had became brothers with during a firefight, but rather he was saying he feared being forced to challenge his belief structure as it related to the US Military.

For an institution whom has charged itself with uncovering the truth at any cost, they are fearful of uncovering their own hidden truth; they hate the US Military and only wish to, at a minimum, neuter it. The media, at some point in time, ceased to be the 4th estate and became a 5th column, working with whomever and whatever forces out there sought to destroy the US military. The sad part of this change is that today’s media members consider themselves patriots and protectors of our freedoms, when in fact the policies they seek to promote do nothing more than eat away at our freedoms and seek to cripple the one force we have to protect them.

The media fears embedding, because to do so would force them to accept that the US Military is not the evil force they present them as, but rather would alert the world that the media is really the force that needs to be watched. They had at one time been the defenders of freedom, speaking out against injustices and inequities around the world. They helped usher in a new form of government, one that gave them special powers to be free from political or royal influence. They uncovered government waste and corruption, and helped the common man know that he had not been forgotten, but somewhere along the line they became that which they were sworn to defend against.

Today’s journalists may be chomping at the bit to get to Iraq and Afghanistan and hot spots around the world, and some of them, the good ones, may really want to tell the story they see, the good and the bad, but some of them, really only want to find the bad and use it to confirm their suspicions and beliefs about what it is we do. To them we will always be the baby-killers, and they can’t let anything get in the way of challenging that belief, even if it means framing the war as a quagmire, and once again, neutering the US Military in front of the entire world.

Iraq is as far from Vietnam as can be, but if the media can turn Iraq into another Vietnam by forging public opinion to match their own belief about the US Military, then so be it. The end as they say, justifies the means. I just wonder how many fine American son’s and daughter’s they are willing to sacrifice on their alter of lies before America wakes up.

Crossposted at: Castle Argghhh!