Times (London) - March 27, 2003
Don't shoot the messenger. You've no idea how difficult this war is to cover Janine di Giovanni
Reporters are once again coming under fire, this time not only from Tomahawk missiles and Kalashnikov rounds, but from the usual criticism that comes whenever a war is brought to our homes via that extraordinary device, "real time" television.
Most of the flak is aimed at American network reporters going overboard with the patriotic routine. Some journalists have been using the royal pronoun "we" while referring to US troops advancing towards Baghdad. MSNBC uses closing images of Old Glory blowing in the desert breeze with the words "our hearts go with them" accompanying it. Fox News, whose reporters were expelled from Baghdad last month, takes it one step further with frankly jingoistic language, gung-ho footage and reporters who look like special forces.
Images of injured Iraqi civilians are virtually non-existent. Often, this is not the reporters' fault. Of the grand American networks, three ABC, NBC and CBS were pulled out of Baghdad by their presidents and the fourth, CNN, was expelled last week. The result is that we get more sweeping desert scenes of charging marines than of everyday life during war.
Iraqi TV is giving as good as it gets. Today, in a hospital in Amman, I stood with a group of open-mouthed Jordanians who were watching fresh footage of a civilian killed by a cruise missile. The crowd in Baghdad dragging the body out of the ruins was angry, their faces twisted with rage. A young technician standing next to me reminded me of the power of television. "Everyone watching that wants to grab a gun, run to Iraq and fight," he said.
But perhaps more important is the point that punters watching TV or reading papers have no idea how difficult this war is to cover. The story, for a reporter, is in one of two places: in Baghdad, which it is almost impossible to get to now, or in the southern desert with the Marines. To be there, however, reporters had to "embed" with the Pentagon months ago. Most experienced war reporters balked at the notion of being so controlled and having to obey a 12-page booklet put forth by the American war machine. "We were all too arrogant we thought we were too good to embed," complained one veteran war correspondent. "So we gave the slots to the domestic news reporters. Now look at where they are and look at where we are!" Most of the experienced reporters - John Simpson, Fergal Keane, Allan Little - are marooned on borders everyone thought would open up.
Reporters are pulling out their hair with boredom in Kurdistan; there's a real war in the western desert on the Jordanian-Iraq border, but no one can get to it; and on the border of Kuwait most of the press corps are miserably camping out in their cars, unable to get into the desert. A few brave independent journalists, known as "unilaterals", tried to tag along with the Marines into the southern desert last weekend, but the risks were huge, as the death of the veteran ITN reporter Terry Lloyd showed. I heard that the coalition forces received no fewer than 60 calls from desperate "unilaterals" travelling alone in the desert who came under fire.
The other problem is the demands of "real time" TV. Most journalists simply don't have time to gather enough information before presenters sitting in cosy London studios throw irritating questions at them which they often cannot answer. As a result, mistakes are made: Umm Qasr declared secure before it actually was controlled, the uprisings in Basra not yet proven to be true.
In Baghdad, it's even harder. Journalists must comply with the government-appointed minder who watches their reports. During the excellent broadcasts of Sky's David Chater from the roof of the Ministry of Information, one can practically see the shadow of his minder. You can see how the BBC's Paul Wood is just dying to say more. The same goes for the lucky embeds swept away in southern desert sandstorms. "I can't answer that," is the frequent response from al-Nasiriyah or Najaf.
I find myself yearning for the days when one got in a car in Bosnia and simply drove down sniper's alley - who ever needed five press passes, impossible visas, a chemical warfare suit, two satellite phones and an embed with the US Marines to report a story?
Perhaps this is why more journalists are preferring to report on the forgotten, smaller wars in Africa and Asia, and leave the big stories to the networks. Places like the Ivory Coast, Sudan or the Congo rarely make the headlines, but they offer more satisfying reporting. And every reporter worth their salt knows the real story always lies away from the pack with the militia or the underdog, not the army charging across the desert. Whoever heard of an embed in Somalia?