Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq - Hardcover

Bill Katovsky; Timothy Carlson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1592282652 ISBN 13: 9781592282654

Publisher: Lyons Pr, 2003

Synopsis

"The interviews crackle with immediacy." -The New York Times

"It is my hope that this outstanding piece of work will reach the widest possible distribution and readership." -Dan Rather, CBS News, on the John Burns interview

EMBEDDED is a collection of deeply emotional and highly personal accounts of covering the Iraq War. Many of the world's top war correspondents and photographers speak candidly about life on the battlefield. Here are articulate and heartfelt descriptions of fear and firefights, of bullets and banalities, of risking death and meeting deadlines.

With over sixty interviews conducted in Kuwait and Iraq shortly after many returned home, Katovsky and Carlson allowed these journalists to step outside their professional role as journalists and examine the lethal allure of combat reporting.

Here is CBS Evening News correspondent Jim Axelrod discussing the perils of racing to Baghdad while despondent over the death of a television colleague and being unexpectedly comforted by ABC News Nightline's Ted Koppel; Newsweek reporter Scott Johnson unwittingly driving into an ambush and then kicking out the windshield of his bullet-riddled car to escape the Iraqi gunmen; New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns's brave refusal to be intimidated by his Iraqi information ministry minders; and many, many more.
Each interview in EMBEDDED maps its own personal path and narrative arc, while presenting an emotional window to war and reporting. Taken individually, each offers a unique view of the most-covered war in history. Collectively, EMBEDDED is an eyewitness to history that will do for the war in Iraq what Michael Herr's Dispatches did for Vietnam.

About this title

Review:

In comparison to the Gulf War of 1991, in which the Pentagon controlled the news as tightly as possible, the war of 2003 was a wide-open affair for reporters. This was partly done to counteract propaganda coming from the Iraqi government; it was also an attempt to control and influence the news by keeping journalists under close watch. To this end, the Pentagon developed a "slick new public relations concept known as embedding." (xiii galley) Embedded journalists lived, ate, and traveled with the troops. They also came under enemy fire with the troops. In fact, as a group, the roughly 2,700 journalists in Iraq were more likely to be killed in combat than the quarter million American and British soldiers. Traveling with troops was generally safer and afforded better access, but what about journalistic ethics? That is question at the core of this fascinating book and one proves to have many different answers.

Embedded is a collection of interviews conducted between April and June 2003 of 60 journalists, public affairs officers, and freelance photographers from a wide range of print, television, and radio sources. Their stories convey information, impressions, and anecdotes that could not be included in their official reports and are therefore quite revealing. They confront not only the risks, and allure, of reporting from a combat zone, but of getting too close to the story to remain objective (if true objectivity is even possible). This personal and often moving collection offers great insight into the most covered war in history. --Shawn Carkonen

From the Back Cover:

Embedded, The Media at War in Iraq is a collection of deeply emotional and highly personal accounts of what it was like to cover the Iraq War. Many of the world's top war correspondents and photographers speak candidly about life on the battlefield. Here are articulate and heartfelt descriptions of fear and firefights, of bullets and banalities, of risking death and meeting deadlines.
With over 60 interviews conducted in Kuwait and Iraq and shortly after many returned home, Katovsky and Carlson allowed these brave men and women to step outside their professional role as journalists and examine the lethal allure of combat reporting.
Embedding has a special meaning for combat correspondents far beyond a limited definition of being placed within U.S. or British military units. Even non-embedded or independent reporters faced being entrapped in the propaganda gears of an unstoppable military machine. For some journalists, being an embed meant being in bed with the troops. For others, it meant free transportation, three squares a day, and a front-row seat to the big show where careers are made and adrenaline runs wild.
Here is CBS Evening News Correspondent Jim Axelrod discussing the perils of racing to Baghdad while despondent over the death of a television colleague and being unexpectedly comforted by ABC Nightline's Ted Koppel; Newsweek reporter Scott Johnson unwittingly driving into an ambush and then kicking out the windshield of his bullet-riddled car to escape the Iraqi gunmen; New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns' brave refusal to be intimidated by his Iraqi information ministry minders; husband and wife, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Washington Post Moscow Bureau Chiefs, though separated on the battlefield, still stay in touch each night by satellite phone; Fox News Producer and Reporter Maya Zumwalt, granddaughter of a U.S. Navy legend, is treated as family by her battalion of brothers - the 82nd Airborne; Orange County Register reporter Gordon Dillow is forced to swap his notebook for a grenade during an ambush; Time magazine photographer Yuri Kozyrev locates the touching symbol of the war in a Baghdad hospital; Los Angeles Times writer David Zucchino spends several nights in Saddam's vacated palace; and Detroit News Reporter John Bebow hangs tough in bad-guy country with a colonel airlifted from Apocalypse Now.
Each interview in Embedded maps its own personal path and narrative arc, while presenting an emotional window to war and reporting. Taken individually, each offers a unique view of f0the most-covered war in history. Collectively, Embedded is an eyewitness to history and will do for the war in Iraq what Michael Herr's Dispatches did for Vietnam.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lyons Pr
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1592282652
• ISBN 13: 9781592282654
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 450