Center for Strategic leadership, Issue Paper. October 2003, Volume 08- 03. Reporters on the Ground: The Military and the Media's Joint Experience During Operation Iraqi Freedom

摘要

During the planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the Department of Defense (DoD) developed an embedded media program that planned for larger numbers of embedded reporters throughout military units. Unlike Vietnam in the 1970s, this program resulted in television reporting from within Iraq, especially from those reporters embedded with front-line units, almost instantaneously. The speed that these reports made it on the air often outpaced the military's communication channels. Although it gave the American citizens an immediate close tip report of what their armed forces were doing, it handicapped media analysts and stateside reporters in their ability to put the raw reporting from the field into a larger context. Conversely, those TV journalists supplying these spectacular reports and engrossing pictures from the front line were also handicapped in that they were reporting in a vacuum, unable themselves to obtain any kind of perspective or context. How well did this program work. What went right and wrong and why. What needs to be done in the future to create a program that better informs the American people. These were just some of the issues discussed in a unique and wide-ranging workshop conducted by the United States Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership.