The Pros and Cons of Allowing Media Presence in Combat Zones - Essay Example

?Running Head: Homeland Security Embed or not to Embed: A Report on the Pros and Cons of Allowing Media Presence in Combat Zones A Report Title Name of Professor Date of Submission Introduction The decision of the military to attach reporters in combat units is unparalleled in its magnitude and a marked difference to earlier conflicts where in reporters’ access was limited. Nevertheless, thus far, there has been no comprehensive effort to identify whether this move was in fact revolutionary, in terms of its pros and cons. A number of critics claimed that attaching reporters to combat units would generate slanted or subjective coverage, making the military look good. They also argued that the media violates operational secrecy rules of the military. But prohibiting reporters from the war zone will definitely transgress the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which stipulates (Sloan & Parcell, 2002, 127): Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This dilemma is quite complicated and requires appropriate and sufficient attention. This report addresses this issue by identifying the advantages and disadvantages of allowing the presence of the media in the combat zone. This is in attempt to find a compromise and encourage positive outcomes of the media-military relationship. The Pros and Cons Although critics perceive the presence of the media in the combat zone as a defective step favoring military interests, large numbers of reporters viewed it as a victory for the people’s right to know. They argue that war reporting was substantially better than distant or impersonal reporting (Pfau et al., 2004). Allowing the presence of the media in the combat zone may have advantages. First, the administration will learn to honor its pledge of freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Second, implanting the media will allow journalists to give ‘actual’ or ‘personal’ coverage or reports about the war, providing a more vivid picture of the chaos and horrors of war. Third, journalists on the combat zone could amend incorrect statements of military staff and unearth facts that may have been concealed by military officers. Ultimately, although critics claimed that reporters in the combat zone can get ‘intimate’ with military personnel, advocates emphasized that military officers can also provide additional ideas and disclose vital information (Exoo, 2009) to these implanted reporters. However, the practice posed many dilemmas to objective reporting of war activities. First, the rules for attaching reporters to combat units are not intended to allow unrestrained liberty to cover the war, but to make sure that the military account of the conflict is the only one publicized. Members of the press are not permitted to travel alone, which implies they could merely depend on a small number of sources aside from the military personnel. Interviews have to be documented, which implies average service personnel were less probable to scrutinize military operations or protocols. Officials are permitted to edit report and control electronic communication or broadcasts for ‘operational secrecy’ (Pfau et al., 2004) which may be described as anything the general in command of the troops wanted to expunge. Second, it would be hard to stay neutral when journalists rely on the military for basic necessities like information, security, transportation, shelter, and food. Gordon Dillow, a reporter who experienced actual exposure in war, revealed (Exoo, 2009, 107): I found myself falling in love with my subject. I fell in love with ‘my’ marines. Maybe it’s understandable. When you live with the same guys for weeks, sharing their dreams and miseries, learning about their wives and girlfriends, their hopes and dreams, admiring their physical courage and strength, you start to make friends-closer friends in some ways than you’ll ever have outside of war. Isolated from everyone else, you start to see your small corner of the world the same way they do. By being attached to a specific combat unit, reporters would have access merely to the point of view of the military. Tied to a single combat unit, the reporter could merely cover the conflict from the point of view of that unit. Combatants and citizens are inaccessible to journalists. Hence, a bigger coverage of the triumph of the war and the response of the people is mislaid. Journalists provide only a few bits of reality that does not constantly expose the larger reality (Pfau et al., 2004). As admitted by a reporter of U.S. News & World Report (2003, 50), “Sitting on top of a Bradley fighting vehicle in southern Iraq might tell you a lot about one particular skirmish- but not necessarily anything about the overall state of the war.” Third, with a small number of sources aside from military personnel, journalists quite frequently believe the accounts of the governments. For example, many journalists eagerly believed the statement of the government that the Iraqi Republican sentinel was a fearsome foe when actually those troops cowered in the front of the U.S. armed forces (Exoo, 2009). In contrast, journalists usually shift abruptly to the other extreme. For instance, when bandits and crooks of Iraq started pestering and holding back the U.S. military advance, a number of reporters started to characterize the conflict in terms of the predicament during the Vietnam War (Exoo, 2009). Lastly, present-day conflict entails attacking a remote opponent, making it hard to recreate what had taken place in a war and report a full story. Without interpreters or transportation, reporters are not able to confirm military statements about the triumph of the war. Likewise, due to the ‘distant’ struggle, and apprehension about the effect back home, journalists report a small number of fatalities and merely infrequent victims (Pfau et al., 2004). As stated by Terence Smith, the producer of NewsHour (Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 2005, 304), “The concern for the sensibilities of the U.S. audience and the troops was understandable, but the net result was a ‘clean’ war, rather than the gory mess it was.” Reporters in combat zones will definitely witness the dullness and hazard of the condition, the domination and authority of the military officers, and public euphoria as an authoritarian regime collapses. Reporters back home experience the conflict from a distance and their reports focus on the volatility and hazards of the war as well as the possibility of a major military counter-offensive and confrontation. References n.a. (2003). “U.S. News & World Report” U.S. News Pub. Corp., 134. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (2005). “Journalism and mass communication quarterly” Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 82 (1-2). Exoo, C. (2009). The Pen and the Sword: Press, War, and Terror in the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Sloan, W. & Parcell, L. (2002). American Journalism: History, Principles, Practices. New York: McFarland & Company. Pfau, M. et al. (2004). “Embedding Journalists in Military Combat Units: Impact on Newspaper Story Frames and Tone” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 81(1), 74+ Read More