Evolution of War Reporting From the Crimea to Iraq, The

When U.S. forces rolled into Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, a new word in war reporting was coined-"embedded."

This term, never before used in covering a war, refers to the assignment of accredited journalists to specific military units to live with and accompany those units as they moved into Iraq. Thus was ushered in a new concept in the highly competitive and often risky job of combat reporting. If one followed cable news in particular and other newsgathering organizations during this period, you noticed that practically every frontline unit had one or more reporters and camera operators embedded with it, reporting directly from the scene of the action.

Yet as new as this concept of covering a war may seem, combat journalism is not recent or unique. Reporters have been accompanying military units into battle and reporting and photographing it long before Iraq. While certainly effective, the embedded system had its pros and cons, but generally from the military point of view, the embed program was considered an "unqualified success." Battlefield reporting by the embeds was more current and accurate and helped the military achieve its goal of denouncing or rebutting the disinformation of Saddam's Information Ministry. The new system brought the action directly to the viewer without, for the most part, censorship, and sometimes bordered on the editorial. Direct reporting from the field, however, carries the risk of accidentally aiding the enemy.

"Electronic" journalism was really introduced during the Vietnam War, when that terrible conflict was flung into our living rooms via the television set. Americans sat stunned in their homes as they watched the evening news pour out the life and death struggle going on in the jungles of Southeast Asia. One can vividly recall journalists giving their reports while standing among body bags about to be flown back to the states, or crouched in a sea of waving grass generated by the violent air of the helicopters rising from a forward firebase or landing zone. Years later, who can forget the image of a cable news war correspondent standing on the roof of a Baghdad hotel during the first Gulf War, mike in hand while tracers streaked across the night sky and explosions rocked the building?

War reporting as we know it came of age during the Crimean War in the 185Os when William Russell (no relation) came into prominence as a reporter for the famous London newspaper, The Times, and as such is considered to be the first bona fide war correspondent. His coverage of the famed but suicidal charge of the Light Brigade was the inspiration for the famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson who penned those immortal words: "into the valley of death rode the six hundred." It was 673 troopers who rode into the face of Russian artillery that day but then, who's counting, and somehow "into the valley of death rode the 673" just doesn't seem to ring.

It was Rusell's reporting of that disastrous charge and the sufferings of the British army in the Crimea, especially during the harsh winter of 1854, that so upset Queen Victoria that it ultimately resulted in the resignation of her prime minister. Russell's exposure of the condition of British soldiers and their lack of proper medical treatment also reached the attention of the minister of war. he was so distraught at the news that he appointed Florence Nightingale, a social and medical advocate of the time, to go to Turkey and establish a hospital for the care and treatment of the wounded.

Russell was the quintessential war correspondent. Not only did he cover the Crimean War, he reported on action in the American Civil War, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. he also was on hand during the latter stages of the Zulu uprising in Africa. In doing so, he endured all sorts of hardships. he had to supply his own horse, his own tent and, for a while, his own rations. There was the constant threat of being struck down by an enemy bullet, a risk every reporter takes when he or she steps on the battlefield.

Another reporter who was at the scene of a famous debacle some 20 years later in America was a freelance newspaper reporter named Mark Kellogg, who rode with George Custer at Little Big Horn to report on his "glorious" victory and who died along with other members of Custer's command.

Actually, war corresponding goes back to the days of julius Caesar and the Roman Empire where we find centurions sending back reports and letters to their families of certain campaigns and battles they participated in, and these reports likely ended up in the "daily scrolls," edited no doubt in the positive.

History also records that English King Harold died with an arrow in his heart during William the Conqueror's victory at Hastings in 1066. That event is recorded on the famous Bayeux Tapestry, a long and narrow wall hanging on which is embroidered the record of the Norman Conquest. It is displayed at Bayeux in Normandy.

The American Civil War was also well covered. Northern reporters probably outnumbered their southern peers. The New York Herald alone, for example, reportedly had 60 men in the field with Union forces, and they wandered freely about, writing whatever they so chose, often questioning generals and their tactics. Meanwhile in the South, reporters worked under a unique pool system (that would later be employed during World War II and Korea).

Because southern editors could not dispatch reporters to cover every battle and major event, southern newspapers formed a press association (the forerunner of today's news organizations such as AP, UPI and Reuters), with one reporter covering a certain battle for all the newspapers in the association.

Under this system the southern press was able to have the war covered from all aspects. Dispatches sent back were more objective, containing only the facts concerning the event. In fact, southern war reporters were forbidden to make references to how the war was being fought. Their stories were subjected to a censorship process to ensure no military secrets were disclosed.

The Civil War was also a well-photographed war, thanks to the famous New York photographer, Matthew Brady. His photographs, or those shot by his many assistants in the field, appeared mostly in Harper's Weekly. These photographs were made into woodcut engravings since this was before the development of the halftone process and appeared as line drawings rather than photographs. It was not until around 1880 that the halftone process was developed and Brady's pictures were published as real photographs. His photographic account of that bloody conflict was the first instance of comprehensive pictorial coverage of military forces in action.

Much can also be said of the combat photographers of modern wars; men such as Robert Capa of Life magazine, noted for some of the most poignant images to come out of World War II, and especially of his unforgettable shot of a Spanish soldier at the moment of death during the Spanish Civil War. Unlike war reporters, to a large extent, combat photographers must get in close to the action to tell their story.

Some reporters even took part in the action. James Creelman of the New York Journal led a bayonet charge in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in 1898. It should be noted that this was the first "media-driven" war, in which publishing giants William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer attempted to inflame their respective readers by deliberately inciting war fever.

While the reporting of a battle or war is not new, the means of transmitting the reports have changed. Getting the news quickly back to the home front has always been a problem. However, with the introduction of the telegraph, Civil War dispatches were more easily and quickly disseminated. Censorship would ultimately begin to play a large role in the transmission of news from the battlefield. In World War I, for example, the British and French would not allow correspondents in the field. As a result of this rigid form of censorship, American correspondents covering the war until 1917 reported from the German side where they had better access.

During World War II and to some degree, Korea, the pool system was employed. As previously described, under this system, one reporter was allowed to witness and record a certain action, representing all the press. An epic example of this was the selection of pool photographer Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press to photograph the raising of the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima in 1945. Earlier, a Marine combat photographer took a picture of the flag being raised atop the mountain. The historic event was done again later because a longer pole and larger flag were needed.

Identifying reporters in the field became another problem and headache for military forces in the field. After the United States entered World War I, American correspondents covering it were issued military uniforms with green armbands. World War II, which produced such greats as Ernie PyIe, killed in action in the Pacific late in the war, were required to wear a patch that read WAR CORRESPONDENT. Civilian correspondents in the Korean War, accredited by the United Nations to cover the war, wore a blue and white insignia that said UN WAR CORRESPONDENT. U.S. Army reporters displayed a patch that identified them as an OFFICIAL U.S. ARMY CORRESPONDENT.

Press coverage of the three-year war in Korea was reduced from frontpage news to back page stories as the war continued. For the first year, it made headline news around the world, and especially in America. The roller-coaster race of the first year, when U.N. and communist forces rolled up and down the peninsula, brought reporters from around the world, representing every news-gathering organization in the free and communist world. When peace talks got under way in 1951, all eyes turned toward Kaesong and later Panmunjom, sites of the peace negotiations, but the war went on.

Coverage of the hill battles fought during the last two years was primarily the job of unsung military combat reporters and photographers, but some battles went unnoticed by the press. The story of the heroic fight for Pork Chop Hill in April 1953 was virtually unreported. U.N. correspondents were at Panmunjom covering Operation Little Switch, a prisoner exchange. As military historian S.L.A. Marshall so poignantly put it, "All that happened, all of the heroism and all of the sacrifice, went unreported. So the very fine victory of Pork Chop Hill deserves the description of the won-lost battle. It was won by the troops and lost to sight by the people who sent them forth."

Korea, unlike later wars and conflicts, was primarily a print and still picture war. It was the last war not televised and I think that is why it became known as the "forgotten war."

Television had not made its entry yet. Only motion picture coverage was provided, primarily shot by military cameramen, and it took a long and fairly arduous route to America's movie screens. Film had to be developed and sent via channels, resulting in it reaching theaters some seven to 10 days after the action.

Korea, at first, drew correspondents like bees to honey. This situation was vividly illustrated in. a cartoon that appeared in the Pacific Stars & Stripes. It depicted an infantryman, rifle held at high port, wading through a swarm of civilian correspondents heading for the forward areas. The balloon caption read, "Hey, do you mind if I get up there?" Thanks to Army reporters and photographers who trudged along Korea's frontline, writing stories about individuals, various units and engagements, they at least kept the war news on the front pages of the Stars & Stripes and the exploits of individual soldiers in their hometown papers.

Only when what first started out as a fairly small outpost engagement later evolved into a major battle did the U.N. press turn its attention to it. Usually, a military combat reporter was already on the scene. At the battle for Capital Hill in the fall of 1952 between a major Chinese force and a Republic of Korea division, a correspondent from the U.S. IX Corps' public information office (PIO) section had been reporting from the scene for several days before the U.N. press arrived, finally convinced that a major event was taking place. The following month, the same PIO section, led by Capt. James L. Holton (now deceased), a former Associated Press editor, was responsible for 90 percent of the coverage of the 10-day battle for White Horse Mountain, a major blocking point in the communists' drive to Seoul. Holton placed one of his reporters at a forward outpost and for 10 days maintained an hour-by-hour coverage of the battle by his staff, whom he rotated around in what he called his "two-platoon" system. Several of the combat correspondents were decorated for their frontline coverage.

There is no doubt that the Vietnam War, through the medium of television, brought grim and graphic reminders of war quickly to Americans at home. Many reporters were controversial in their reports and questioned certain decisions made by the government in relation to the war, pursuing the old axiom of "the public's right to know." This in turn added fuel to the fire for anti-Vietnam demonstrators, who condemned the war and flooded the streets of America's cities during the 1960s proclaiming their sentiment.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the war went on and coverage continued, some of it praising the men doing the fighting and dying there. Reporters, too, were at risk, with some 45 correspondents losing their lives in the war.

More recently, in Iraq, where, at this writing, a costly type of warfare still rages, those reporters embedded with the troops during the so-called combat phase did much to bring home news and pictures of U.S. troops in action. This was achieved through the use of technological advances in the form of compact telephones, laptop editing software and light digital cameras. Despite these advances in high-tech journalism, one thing still stands out-the reporter must be there on the scene. This will probably never change.

Such is the nature of combat journalism. From the Crimea to Iraq, war correspondents, both civilian and military, have played a key role in keeping the public informed.

Some obviously did it for profit and notoriety; some, like the soldier's pal and advocate, Ernie PyIe, did it to let America know the true story of the hardships and dangers endured by those in combat, while William Russell's reporting of the Crimean War resulted in the reform of a sadly neglected system.

As writer Harry Matthews has put it, "If you have not seen a battle, your education has been somewhat neglected, for after all, war has ever been one of the primary functions of mankind, and unless you see men fight, you miss something fundamental."

WILLIAM RUSSELL served as an Army combat correspondent during the Korean War and has written several books on Korea, including the novel, Face of the Enemy.

Copyright Association of the United States Army Feb 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved