Journalists discuss war coverage
By Nicole LaPrade
Embedded journalists are necessary for accurate reporting and have changed the face of media coverage of the war in Iraq, four influential journalists said in a panel discussion Tuesday.
Reporters from The New York Times, Al Jazeera and CorpWatch,and an Associated Press photojournalist spoke candidly about their experiences reporting on the war in Iraq and their impressions of what will likely happen next.
The audience filled the television studio, spilling over into the Wiegand Room and the lobby the of Arts and Sciences building. The discussion was sponsored by the communication department.
"I am a civilian in a military environment," said Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent for The New York Times. He described embedding journalists with troops as a return to reporting styles that were used in World War II and the Vietnam War and stressed the accuracy that embedded reporting could bring.
Gordon said that during the build up to the war in Iraq, the journalists in the area had a better understanding of what the military would be up against than officials in the Pentagon, who were unaware of the insurgency and paramilitary resistance that American troops would face.
Associated Press photographer Laura Rauch was embedded with U.S. Marines during the invasion of Iraq and shared captivating photos of both soldiers and Iraqis from her time in Iraq.
She described her work as capturing the human side of the story and maintained that even though a reporter is embedded, it's possible for them to be fair.
She said that she does not censor her own work but sends all the photographs she takes to the Associated Press offices in New York or London. Her photos are then made available to publications throughout the world through the wire service.
Rauch said that American publications tended to censor her photos more than European or Middle Eastern media outlets. "Here, we do not see them all," she said.
Maya Beydoun of Al Jazeera worked in Iraq until they were forced to close their offices in the country. Now, she reports from the United States and noted the significant difference in accessibility to sources.
She said that military sources that were open to providing her and her colleagues information while in Iraq are now some of the most difficult sources in the United States.
Pratap Chatterjee, who runs the Internet watchdog Web site CorpWatch, said that news media is changing with the increasing accessibility of the Internet. There is a new immediacy and ability to get information out, which could further be enhanced through blogs and "wikis," Web sites that allow users to contribute information for others to see.
Nicole LaPrade has been a news reporter for The Santa Clara for the past two years, and is graduating this spring with a degree in communication and economics.