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Banned
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Originally Posted by Charlatan
.....To put this into perspective... did all of those embedded journalists pay for their flights to Iraq, their accommodations and every K ration they consumed? Probably not.....
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Charlatan, I took a look at that issue when I was putting together my last post.
The rules for embedded journalists were:
(I'm not a fan of Michael Yon, but this doesn't seem obviously slanted...)
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If this won't work, http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/10/embed.html ...try this for text only:
http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache...&gl=us&strip=1
Thursday, October 13, 2005
The Embed
Baghdad
I've returned to Iraq.
People ask how journalists get embedded. This seems a fair moment for synopsis of some firsthand experience.
The process begins with an application to the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC). This is simple to complete with emails. If a journalist works for a credible media organization, and can pass some kind of background check—quick and transparent—in all likelihood, CPIC will instruct the applicant to fly to Kuwait.
My second application for an embed was recently declined, a process from which I learned that simple is not always straightforward. For me, one of the sharp turns came just before the intersection of independence and affiliation. Although the guidelines for embedding with the military stipulated an affiliation with a media organization, I was previously embedded, for more than eight months, as a completely independent writer.
For some reason, this time my independent status caught up on a snag and seized the embed machinery. Some have speculated that dispatches like "Proximity Delays" might have brought deliberate, even disgruntled, scrutiny to my work, but whether or not there's merit to that claim does not alter that I did not have a formal affiliation with any media organization.
CPIC insisted that I needed affiliation to re-enter Iraq. Many newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media had used my photographs and writing, and more than a dozen had offered different types of affiliation. Although some were tempting financially, and others appealed more to prestige, my independence mattered most. In the end, The Weekly Standard supported my re-entry by offering affiliation with independence.
With that obstacle down, the CPIC granted the embed. I was instructed to fly to Kuwait, and told the best place to stay would be the Hilton.
The Embed Equation
People who wonder about the limited number of reporters on the ground in Iraq probably think it's the danger that keeps many away. This certainly is true for some. For others, the persuasive problems are more practical: the expenses can be severe. There's expense associated with planning and applying for the embed. There is specialized gear to be purchased: protective equipment alone can cost thousands of dollars per person, and even in peaceful times, the desert climate is still extremely hard on electronic equipment. Getting to the Middle East requires a long, expensive flight. And the Hilton that came so highly recommended also came with a high room rate: $590 for a room that would have been worth maybe $150 in Florida. There was nothing to drink in the room, but the front desk offered to send up two bottles of water for about $23. There was no internet cable in the room. For $590 per night, a guest shouldn't have to pay for water, or call for an internet cable. For that kind of money, there should be a helipad on the roof. (The next night I got a room at the same Hilton for closer to $200, and negotiated the first room down.)
These would be trivial matters if the prices were reasonable. Across years spent exploring remote areas, in jungles and deserts, I've never been bothered by lack of electricity, phones, or even running water. But start charging hundreds per night . . . well, the mallet schlags the frustration gong.
An Army Captain arrived to meet me around 4 p.m., and we waited together in the lobby for a radio journalist from the Netherlands, a Dutchman who introduced himself as Hans. The three of us ambled down to the restaurant to discuss the details of our trip to Iraq over coffee and tea.
After the Army Captain departed, Hans and I had dinner. This was one of many trips to Iraq, he said, having just been to Texas to cover Hurricane Rita. Apparently he'd crisscrossed the globe many times. When our discussion moved to the more practical considerations of life as an embedded journalist, it underscored just how dear it is to cover this war intensively.
It cost Hans' employer thousands of dollars per week just for the insurance to cover his time in Iraq. Add that to his wages, the cost of his airplane tickets, the ground transportation and hotel charges he incurred, and his company was on the hook for thousands of dollars per day to put their reporter in the field, where he spoke into a microphone with no camera.
Television crews often use two- or three-person teams, spending dollars by the bucketful, covering events that few people in major markets still consider a priority. Add danger to that pile of money, then subtract all the information freely and widely available from the military, and the result is a small number of journalists in Iraq.
In World War II, writers like Hemingway and Ernie Pyle loaded up and packed off, sweeping across places like northern Africa, Italy, France, Germany, and the Pacific islands. They wrote about war, but also about fascinating cultures scattered across new landscapes. And the war itself seemed to obey simpler rules: there were tremendous human losses, but when Europe's cities were liberated one after another, they stayed liberated. Victory was cumulative and satisfying, not slapped together with slogans covering festering resistance. But since WWII there have been few "great adventures" in war, and even less glory in reporting war, and most people tasked today with naming a "living war correspondent" would come up blank.
For most journalists considering Iraq, where the frustrations and dangers are high, where there is little glory and less money, and where the expenses vomit—I've now got probably $35,000 worth of gear that might burn up in the next IED explosion—nobody needs a calculator to figure out this one. Food and lodging are free after the embed process—which greatly helps—but that does not settle the account....
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Different rules, Charlatan.... no "carry water for us or you're cut off", and no pentagon VIP tour treatment, for REAL journalists.... |