Media more
: More bits from the media and war confab:
: Discussion of embed fashion: The BBC’s Gavin Hewitt said that apart from wearing the chemical suit, when ordered, he made sure to wear civvies.
“The truth is, some of the embeds really enjoyed the dressing up,” said ABC’s John Donovan.
Blogger Eric Alterman calls out from the audience: “So did the president.”
: Michael Wolff tries, as usual, to see the sinister intent of the military in providing khakis.
ABC’s LeRoy Sievers: “John was a White House correspondent. He dressed like the president: Dark suit, white shirt. Nobody said, ‘John is trying to act like the President.'”
: Jonathan Foreman of the NY Post says the Iraqis did not need embedded reporters because the BBC’s Andrew Gilligan (who said the Americans were not in Baghad when they were) “was doing the job for them.”
: Wolff tries to say that embedded reporters weren’t experienced at war. The reporters jumped down his throat. LeRoy Sievers of ABC said the reporters had more experience in war than the soldiers.
: Foreman complains that reporters were getting excited and calling one shot a “heavy bombardment.” Sievers says “that happens every day on many stoies.”
: Rick Leventhal of FoxNews: “I would never go unilateral (that is, not embedded) in a war. You guys are nuts.”
: James Meek of the Guardian says the problem with the embed program was that no one was embedded with the Iraqis and thus, we did not know where our bullets and bombs landed. He makes an analogy to a boxing match and portrays the Iraqis as a little guy being beaten by a big guy.
Meek says that when he arrived over the border in Safra, he found people who were happy to see the Americans; he saw looting; he saw no administrative structure. He was not embedded. John Donovan of ABC was not embedded and he had a different perspective, saying the Iraqis are uniformly pissed off. He says his producers were asking for him to find pictures of people cheering. So which story was the right story?
Donovan says it was crazy dangerous, more than he knoew.
He says the Iraqis wouldn’t believe us that we were neutral. “And, in fact, we weren’t neutral.”
Well, Mr. Donovan, then were you doing your job?
: Gavin Hewitt of the BBC says being embedded let him get more stories than he could have otherwise: He could show the sand storms that delayed the invasion; he showed images of dead Iraqis on the road into Baghdad. He said he self-censored images of gruesome injury. “I wondered whether we hadn’t shown enough of the reality of the war.”
: Wolff tries to say that embedded reporters weren’t experienced at war. The reporters jumped down his throat. LeRoy Sievers of ABC said the reporters had more experience in war than the soldiers.
: Foreman complains that reporters were getting excited and calling one shot a “heavy bombardment.” Sievers says “that happens every day on many stoies.”
: Wolff tries to get it all ways. He complains that the reporters are uninformed. They say they’re informed — in part by attending bootcamps set up by the military and then Wolff complains that the military was setting up coverage.
: The Guardian’s Meek said when he got back, “I felt as if he had missed the war because I had not seen it on TV.”
: Sievers says in Vietnam, we all knew soldiers in the drafted army. Now, there is more “separation” from soldiers and part of the story was to close that gap.
: Donovan says media doesn’t show how awful war is. Again, Mr. Donovan, and why not? “The principle isn’t we’re trying to be pro-American,” he says. “It fits more oddly into standards and practices. We don’t show naked breasts and we don’t show this (corpses) because we think you can’t take it.” Sievers add: “If we don’t, then war is too easy.”
: You leave an hour with these people realizing that they are a smart bunch who care and work hard to get the story to you.
