War is a soft story when America’s ‘embedded’ media takes aim

Katherine Skiba, 46, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter with the 101st Airborne, wonders whether her husband can cope with the idea of her sleeping in a co-ed tent.

The age of ‘‘embedded’’ journalism has arrived. The shooting may not have started yet, but the media are on a war footing, with reporters and photographers for 200 news organisations now embedded, in Pentagon jargon, with American military units.

This kind of access, which was largely missing in Afghanistan, is starting to produce the kind of stories Pentagon officials had hoped for — those that put a human face on war. There’s little chance of bad publicity, after all, when the subject is young men and women grappling with the rigors, the tedium and the fear of being shipped halfway around the world to take on Saddam Hussein.

The feature approach fits especially well with the up-close-and-personal style of newer cable and Internet outlets that don’t pretend to specialise in B-1 bombers and Al Samoud-2 missiles.

They also reach beyond the hard-core news audience. Arnoldy, who’s with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Group, says his online diary will chronicle ‘‘what daily life is like’’ and that his inexperience may be an asset: ‘‘I don’t know a heck of a lot about the military. The things I notice and am surprised at are things that readers are going to want to know more about. I had no idea whether a major outranks a lieutenant colonel, and there’s a ton of acronyms the military throws around.’’

This is not your father’s Vietnam War. According to Poynter Online, Arnoldy ordered his combat helmet from the Web site Bulletproofme.com and brought an MP3 player for listening to music while he writes.

From magazines like Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal and People to the major newspapers and networks, the embedded media grunts are providing what New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer, at Kuwait’s Camp New Jersey, calls ‘‘an ant’s view of the anthill, a glimpse of the capacity for war and an informal tote of the human costs that go along with threatening to wage it.’’

‘‘We’re playing a different game, a different sport,’’ says Yago, whose MTV special from Kuwait airs Monday night. ‘‘There’s an amazing story to be told about these young men who are about to come of age with guns in their hands.’’

He was struck by ‘‘looking at the young faces of the people who are talking about how they are preparing to take someone’s life. This is going to keep the kids dialed into the headlines.’’ Skiba, the Milwaukee reporter, is getting down and dirty: ‘‘I’m calling you from a tent with 40 or 50 people, most of them men. Ten feet away there are smelly feet under the sleeping bag. Your luggage, your hair, your skin is coated with sand. We’re not at war yet, but they’re promising a real front-row seat. Nobody’s got a gun to my head saying, ‘We want good stories about our soldiers.’ I have a lot of access to everybody.’’

Television is ratcheting up its ‘‘showdown with Saddam’’ coverage by deftly deploying its stars. Dan Rather is just back from Saddam’s Baghdad palace. Charlie Gibson went to Bahrain and Kuwait to profile military leaders for ‘‘Good Morning America.’’

Tom Brokaw has already anchored from Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey and Qatar, and Katie Couric from Saudi Arabia. Chris Bury is reporting for Nightline from Qatar. CNN plans to ship Wolf Blitzer and Christiane Amanpour to Kuwait.

MSNBC has drafted former CNN Gulf War correspondent Peter Arnett and is running ads for The Experts, including retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.

Arnoldy says that from 75 miles outside Iraq ‘‘the Al Samoud missiles they may or may not be destroying could reach this base, and they could tip it with some chemical or biological nasties. I’m glad I got my smallpox shot.’’ Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, who recently visited an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, strikes a skeptical note: ‘‘Will some media ‘embeds’ end up ‘in bed’ with their military protectors?’’ That’s always a problem when reporters’ lives are at stake. But it seems an acceptable risk in exchange for real-time coverage of an unfolding military conflict. (LA Times-Washington Post)