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Words & Reflectionsthis happy news approach to theway Saddam and Arab governmentstations used to air only positivenews of the government.• Sometimes, 21st century instant coveragetechnology got in the way ofreporting from the war. Some of themost thorough work was done withpencil and notebook, including coverageby Rolling Stone’s Evan Wright,who was with a Marine recon unit.• There was network news camaraderieon the battlefield when ABC News“Nightline’s” Ted Koppel acted as afatherly adviser and comforter to acolleague at CBS following the deathof NBC News correspondent DavidBloom.• Although embedding appeared towork well, Pentagon officials haveindicated that embedding might notbe repeated, depending on the natureof the war and the battlefield.These observations scratch the surfaceof what will surely be an evolvinggive-and-take relationship between themedia and the military. The foot soldiersof today are not just those whocarry weapons. They are also the press.If the 19th century German historianKarl von Clausewitz were alive today,his famous adage might now read, “Waris the continuation of media by othermeans.” Still, it’s the simple truths aboutwar reporting that resonate the loudest,at least to my ears. For example,there are the evocative words of AnnaBadkhen, a young staff writer for theSan Francisco Chronicle, who has filedstories from war zones in Chechnya,Gaza, the West Bank, Kashmir andKabul. She was in northern Iraq whenwe spoke by satellite phone and lives inMoscow with her husband, BostonGlobe Bureau Chief David Filipov, andsix-year old son, Fyodor.Because her assignments often requireher to spend months away fromher home, she admits to experiencingpsychological fallout from her work.“For me personally, war reportingcomes at a high emotional cost. I don’tknow how many people wake up fromnightmares with bullets in their forehead,but it strikes me as a severe priceto pay. I have these recurring dreams ofbeing executed. I have dreams of killingchildren. I have dreams of beingtortured,” she told us. “I’m afraid thetraumas of war must show even athome. Wars are bad, they are devastating,they are terrifying. There can be nogood memories from a war.” ■Bill Katovsky is the coauthor, withTimothy Carlson, of “Embedded: TheMedia at War in Iraq: An Oral History,”published in 2003 by LyonsPress. For more book information,go to www.embeddedthebook.com.bkatovsky@aol.comReporting in Closed Societies‘Every lie tells you a truth. If you just leave your eyes and ears open,it’s extremely revealing.’Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq: An Oral HistoryEdited by Bill Katovsky and Timothy CarlsonThe Lyons Press. 422 Pages. $23.95.John Burns, The New York Times’s chiefforeign correspondent, was interviewedfor this book (even though hewas not embedded), and his wordsappear in a chapter entitled, “TheMoral Compass of Iraq.” Excerpts fromhis observations about reporting inIraq and from other areas of conflictfollow.“There was one major media organization—theBBC—that didn’t even go toAbu Ghraib prison on the afternoon ofOctober the 20th last year. Imaginebeing in the Soviet Union, and you hada chance to be admitted to the heart ofdarkness at the time of the Great Terror.That is what Abu Ghraib was allabout. You had the BBC thinking it wasinappropriate to go there because itmeans that it causes trouble. I couldn’tfind among my colleagues a single onewho had read the human rights reportsabout Abu Ghraib. When Abu Ghraibcame down, most didn’t even knowwhere Abu Ghraib was.“We were summoned on that Sundaymorning to form a motorcade outsidethe Information Ministry. Theydidn’t tell us where we were going. Itturned out to be Saddam’s first tacticalresponse to Bush.… as we headed west on themotorway, anybody who’d read thehuman rights reports knew where wewere going. The problem was even80 Nieman Reports / Winter 2003