Surprise! Embedded reporters emphasize military view

The embedded media program in the Iraq War's first month and a half --- more than five years ago --- proved to be a Pentagon victory because it kept reporters focused on the horrors facing the troops, not the horrors of the civilian war experience, writes a sociologist in the spring issue of Contexts magazine.  Grumpy Editor sees nothing sinister about that since reporters were attached to specific U.S. military units --- and were covering the action from the military view.

Besides, embedded journalists couldn’t wander off too far.  If they did, they would have been prime targets for the bad guys.  And they could have triggered roadside bombs.

Information from the article, in the spring issue of the American Sociological Association’s magazine, started to make the media rounds Thursday.

Written by Andrew M. Lindner, conclusions are based on his analysis of 742 news articles by 156 English language print reporters in Iraq during the first six weeks of the war.  That’s the period starting March 20, 2003.

Lindner, who plans to join the sociology faculty at Minnesota’s Concordia College, Moorhead, in the fall, called the embedded program “a communications victory for an administration that hoped to build support for the war by depicting it as a successful mission with limited cost.”

An ASA news release mentioned Lindner examined “disparities in the news coverage.”  It added, “According to Lindner’s research, embedded reporters most extensively covered the soldier's experience of the war. Nine out of ten articles by these reporters quoted soldiers.” 

Hey, if one is stuck (almost like glue) to a military unit, naturally the emphasis and quotes will be linked to soldiers.

That’s like saying noted, historic reporter Ernie Pyle, describing foxhole views of the fears and daily strife of front-line U.S. soldiers fighting in World War II, failed to cover the horrors of enemy civilians.

Grumpy Editor’s end-of-week leftover notes:

As Boston-based The Christian Science Monitor nears its 100th anniversary, there’s talk about launching a weekly edition…The Seattle Times Co. this week cut the staff at its flagship newspaper by 125 employees…This follows the New York Times announcing Wednesday it had to resort to layoffs after not enough volunteers accepted buyouts intended to cut 100 newsroom positions…Also eyeing staff trims is Fortune magazine, which absorbed some staffers from the shuttered Business 2.0 eight months ago.  If not enough volunteer for severance packages by May 27, then it’ll be pink slip time for an undisclosed number of editorial staffers…Great for optometrists’ business:  Emerson, which doesn’t like to use its full corporate name --- Emerson Electric Co. --- in news releases, print ads or on its Web site, is another company that is running ads with difficult-to-read small white print against an orange background.  It ran such a half-page ad across two Wall Street Journal pages Thursday.  Its Web site isn’t that much better --- with tiny blue print against a white background…An ad in Business Week shows a scantily-clad, Las Vegas-style showgirl, in a dancing mode, taking up nine-tenths of a page.  The company making the pitch?  Korean Air…Bear fact:  One had to read closely in Thursday’s “polar bear declared a threatened species” (by the U.S. Interior Department) story to note --- only in some versions --- that the global population of the ice-loving animals has more than doubled to 25,000 from the late 1960s.