Posted on 04/08/2003 1:38:01 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Not for the first time, the most spectacular images of the United States armoured advance to Baghdad have come from Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network.
After scooping its cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC with footage of troops entering Baghdad and then later storming Saddam International Airport, a Fox reporter, Greg Kelly, and his cameraman had the dress circle view yesterday as a column of US 3rd Infantry division tanks took a tour of Baghdad landmarks.
Starting at Saddam Hussein's main presidential palace, viewers were afforded footage of gold-plated wash basins and waterfalls, and a US soldier hoisting a Georgia University pennant.
Then onto Baghdad's parade grounds and their giant crossed sabres commemorating the Iraq-Iran war. US soldiers mugged for the camera and held up the stars and stripes while Kelly did live crosses with Fox anchors in Washington.
Then came the coup de grace: the destruction of the iconic statue of Saddam astride a steed to cheers from the US soldiers.
Meanwhile, Fox's rivals were shut out of town. CNN had to make do with distant shots of smoke-filled Baghdad and retold wire service stories from reporters with troops.
A US military spokesman, Max Blumenfeld, denied that Fox - with its racy but unashamedly patriotic and unquestioning coverage of the war - was being openly favoured. However, he did say enigmatically that public affairs officers such as him were paid to "know your enemy".
"Fox may well have more access. They have good contacts and they asked the right questions in the pre-planning."
Fox is now the most watched cable news network, introducing a right-wing tabloid ethos to the staid 24-hour news industry.
Fact: Greg Kelly is now in the Marine Reserves.
Fact: Greg Kelly works for Fox News.
Fact: The Pentagon assigned reporters to specific units.
Fact: The Pentagon knew the battle plan.
Opinion: It's more likely that Greg Kelly was assigned to the 3rd ID because he served in the Marines and NOT because he works for Fox News Channel.
Opinion: This reporter either left out Greg Kellys military record on purpose to make a political statement, or did pathetic research before writing this article, or both.
Furthermore, I would not be surprised that the journalists that went through the Pentagon reporter certification course (or whatnot) were rated on their military capabilities and assigned to units accordingly.
Ken Dilanian, Philadelphia Inquirer and Steve Vogel, Washington Post are "embedded" with the 173rd Airborne . I do not know if they made the jump to seize that northern Iraqi airport outside Kurdish controlled territory or came in later by cargo aircraft.
With the few exceptions, most journalists appear to be assigned to artilery or combat support roles.
Last night, the lead was passed to MSNBC who broke the Saddam is dead story. MSNBC was in the lead with the story for some part of an hour.
CNN was left in the cold .
By chance? By design?
With the few exceptions, most journalists appear to be assigned to artilery or combat support roles.
Everyone, don't take my two statements the wrong way. If the DOD is faced with a journalist with a low military capability (i.e. high dork factor), the last place you want that person is near a front line combat or air mobile unit. The dork more often kills other people than themselves.
"Approved" people can be assigned to any military unit that the DOD thinks is prudent. The approved person has a brain between their ears and it has been proven in action.
Low-level dorks are assigned to units that will have some mobility but not to the degree that they have to worry all the time about whether or not the dork will get lost or fall off an APC or worse - shot.
Mid-grade dorks are assigned to artilery because it makes for good TV because things go BOOM on a frequent basis. This way the TV journalist dork won't feel as bad that they're not in a tank column.
Really big dorks are at the Pentagon briefing pestering Rummy because they would get airsick on the flight to Doha.
David Bloom died of natural causes and Kelly was killed in a traffic accident near some fighting. Pick better examples to prove what may be an interesting point of yours.
Personally, I like the embeds. It's very close to what we had in WWII, with satellites.
Michael
I was watching the Fox coverage a couple of nights ago, and MSNBC was running a tribute to Bloom at the same time Fox was showing live reports in front of one of Saddam's palaces. No doubt Bloom deserved the tribute, but Fox had the news that night, and my attention.
Realistically speaking, David Bloom and Michael Kelly were not combat fatalities. One was a pure and simple accident and the other was a medical problem. That does not diminish the families' loss.
The media wants the story beyond the limits of rational sense during a war as chronicled by the deaths of several non-embedded journalists by mines and hostile fire in addition to the Palistinan hotel incident last night Baghdad time. In truth, there's absolutely no place for non-combattants on the battlefield but they're there and some damn fools (journalists) put themselves in the middle of the fuzz-ball to get the scoop.
The DOD made the absolute best of a bad situation with the embedding process. Right now, they control the movement and protect the journalists from harm (hostile and friendly). If they were to start pulling the journalists out of the units, they could revert to their natural state of running freely around the battlefield and wondering why they are being swatted down like gnats by the Iraqi irregulars and coalition forces. In this case, there would be Iraqi regular hostile, irregular hostile, journalists, civilians and friendlies roaming the cities and country side - a situation ripe for accidents and blame. They also become targets for assault, murder and kidnapping outside the protection of coalition forces. Their reports would provide information to the enemy. The proplems they could cause the coalition can go on and on.
They are casualties of this War, every bit as much as someone who dies in a crash involving Helicopters that are operating in sandstorms, the darkness of night and at low altitudes, friendly fire victims, guys drowning in rivers or falling off the side of an Aircraft Carrier during their 40th Hour of Flight Deck duty in the last 3 days.
The embeds can provide no real-time accurate report of anything but the mundane that is happening, and their video technologies have revealed nothing. Bob Arnot had no clue what was happening in An Najaf except missiles were filling the air, Marines were firing their weapons and moving with a serious focus, and that he was scared shitless.
Al Michaels and John Madden don't have the potential of getting shot at while providing commentary during an NFL game. There's a big difference between what they're doing and what an embed reporter does.
Moreover if you hold the lives of journalists so sacred, the DOD could have kept all of them out of the coalition sandbox for their own individual safety . However, they permitted journalists into the field under their rules so that most of them should live to the end of the war.
To date, five non-embedded journalists have been killed in combat. Three journalists were held as POWs by the Iraqis and released and four journalists were found illegally behind coalition lines by MPs and detained. The battlefield is a very dangerous place for soldiers yet journalists regulary ignore this fact at their peril.
The analysis that sober professional military and intelligence professionals provide to FOX is little predicated on any new intelligence or revelations that an embed provides. Most all first field reports from battle scenes are inaccurate. Everybody sees something different.
Damn straight.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY!
Have you ever LISTENED to John Madden? ;^)
My point is that all they would see is the action directly in front of them - and their observational skills would be severely influenced by their sacred desire to avoid a pancaking by 240-300 pound world class atheletes running through their personal space at bursts of around 25 miles per hour.
The only thing that ABC announcing crew can report on a typical play is ... "When the ball was snapped, all hell broke loose, and there was a huge blur that sped past me, it might have been Ray Lewis, and he only missed running full speed over me by less than 2 inches. That was close. To repeat, I saw what appeared to be a running play, but then all I saw was a lot of fast and violent movemement, and what could have been Ray Lewis barely missed me. To add further details, I heard plastic protective pads and helmets loudly cracking, a pounding of feet on the turf - and a horrible grunting. The outcome of the play and the location of the ball is at this point not clear."
That's what real time war journalism is worth. The risks to these guys and the soldiers who protect them isn't worth the return in news.
Sorry for sounding too nit-picky, but I read somewhere that when addressing in person an officer who has a "compound rank" ("Major General","Lieutenant Colonel" etc.) that the adjective is dropped. Therefore a letter that is addressed to Lt. Colonel Joseph Brown would have the full rank, but he would be addressed in person as simply "COLONEL Brown" rather than "Lieutenant Colonel Brown"? Sorry if I have this point wrong.
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