I can remember the day I was reading a Newsweek article where it was casually reported that 19 Marines died in Grenada. IIRC, they reported nothing at the time. The press wasn't allowed until it was over and the brouhaha over the press blackout, as well as desire to gloat over victory overpowered investigation into what really happened.
Now, I read this "expose" something like a year later, if memory serves. I was stunned. We kept it secret for that long? And this gets p. 23 coverage in NewsWeek? WTF. POW/MIA orgs actually claim that 4 are still MIA (have to take that with a grain of salt, though)
http://www.cjr.org/year/02/1/hickey.asp http://www.rcfp.org/homefrontconfidential/covering.html
aside from the near impossibility of the embeddeds actually finding out exact figures, [let alone reporting them if they, let alone threats to their safety if they leak the info (see above links)], there is the isolation of families. all they have to do is trickle the news of death in. Since they have to ship bodies back home, it takes awhile. Some could die today and a family might not find out for three weeks.
The families don't necessarily check with one another and compare, either. Which 100 families have been told? E.g., if 100 are dead according to official reports, when a family is notified, do they contact other families and make an accounting of the names of every dead soldier and add up the numbers? (it's kind of like those email petitions where you're supposed to send it to a source email at every 500 sigs. who knows if they are _really_ 500, 1000, etc. if dozens of other people may have a sep. petition someone else forwarded to them.)
So, they buy time until things get back to normal and there isn't 24/7 coverage.
here's a good one on how the Mil uses information warfare on the press: http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/SAAS_Theses/Crumm/crumm.pdf
"According to the Tofflers,the military has used six propaganda tools over and over again throughout the history of war —atrocity stories;hy perbolic inflation of the stakes involved in a war (civilians are told every- thing they hold dear is at risk);dehumanization of the opponent;polar ization (“Those who aren ’t with us,are against us ”);divine sanction (incantatory phrases like “God Bless America ”);and,propaganda that dis credits the other side ’s propaganda.7 Although today ’s vision of IW using high-tech propaganda may be moving to a more sophisticated level,the key point is that these propaganda tools have worked for the United States since the Revolutionary War and continue to work today."
These are the casualties from GW1 btw:
382 Killed in action 467 wounded 37 Killed in action but in non-battle capacity 1 missing in action
1947 Killed outside battle theatre (jeep accidents, etc.)