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Journalists’ hands are tied

Every day, thousands of American men and women perform untold acts of bravery and drudgery on behalf of what our leaders have defined as vital American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But much of the current campaigns go on without notice because the media that cover them are leaking away, worn out by the danger and expense of covering a war that refuses to end.

Many of the journalists in Iraq have been backed into fortified corners, rarely venturing out to see what soldiers confront. And journalists embedded with the troops in Iraq — the number dropped to 92 in May from 126 in April — are risking more and more for less and less.

Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before an image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are prohibited.

If Joseph Heller were still around, he might appreciate the bureaucratic elegance of paragraph 11(a) of IAW Change 3, DoD Directive 5122.5:

“Names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without the service member’s prior written consent.”

Photographs and other images of casualties have always been a delicate matter, and most media outlets have shown restraint.

Working reporters say soldiers in the field are not overly concerned with media coverage — they have more serious matters in their gunsights. The journalists instead suggest the regulations allow the military to take concerns for the privacy of soldiers and their families and leverage them into broader constraints on information.

Ashley Gilbertson, a veteran freelance photographer who has been to Iraq seven times, said the policy, as enforced, is coercive and unworkable.

“They are basically asking me to stand in front of a unit before I go out with them and say that in the event that they are wounded, I would like their consent,” he said. “Making that kind of announcement would make you an immediate bad-luck charm.”

“They are not letting us cover the reality of war,” he added. “I think this has got little to do with the families or the soldiers and everything to do with politics.”

Lt. Col. Josslyn L. Aberle, chief of media operations for Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said the regulations are a matter of common sense and decency, not message management.

“The last thing that we want to do is to contribute to the grief and anguish of the family members,” she said by phone from Iraq. “We don’t want the last image that the family has of their soldier to be a photo of him dying on a battlefield. You have to ask how much value is added.”

There are some people stateside who would agree. In February, a story and accompanying video by New York Times reporter Damien Cave — and a photo taken by Robert Nickelsberg — that depicted the grievous wounding and eventual death of a soldier on Haifa Street drew both praise and condemnation on Internet blogs and in the military about what constitutes appropriate imagery.

Until last year, no permission was required to publish photographs of the wounded, but families had to be notified of the soldier’s injury first. Now, not only is permission required, but any image of casualties that shows a recognizable name or unit is off-limits. And memorials for the fallen in Iraq can no longer be shown, even when invited by the unit.

Kimberly Dozier, a CBS correspondent who was seriously wounded by an I.E.D., has been on both sides of the camera. When she was transferred from Iraq to a hospital in Germany, images of her crumpled body were broadcast all over the world.

“I think some regulations are a good idea,” she said. “Does a soldier lose his rights to privacy because he is in a combat zone and wounded? I don’t think so.”

But then Dozier had a second thought. “The tough pictures, some pictures, need to get out,” she added. “But choosing which ones is a very touchy matter.”

Journalists are frustrated with the new regulations in part because, as this current surge has progressed, there have been further pinches on information. On May 13, the Iraq Interior Ministry said bombing sites would be off limits for an hour after an event; just days later, Iraqi police forces fired shots over the heads of working press to enforce the decree.

In a war where the enemy could be around every corner and support on the home front is weakening, officials are starting to see menace everywhere. In April, military officials placed new restrictions on soldiers’ blogging that define attempts to solicit “critical or sensitive information” as acts of espionage. In an operational security slide presentation for military supervisors, media are defined as a “nontraditional” threat in the same category as drug cartels.

There is already much that American readers and viewers cannot see simply because Iraq has become too dangerous for reporters to do the routine footwork of combat journalism. The Committee to Protect Journalists puts the number of slain media workers at 143; many others have been severely wounded.

Aberle said that the realities of the battleground, and not government control, are to blame for any lack of coverage.

“The enemy has done a good job of taking the journalist out of the fight,” she said. “They are now relying on Iraqi stringers who have a cell phone and a camera, but not much in the way of training. It is challenging and frustrating for the reporters I know who are still covering the story.”

But James Glanz, a Baghdad correspondent who is about to become bureau chief for The New York Times, said that although he had many great experiences working with the rank-and-file soldiers, some military leaders seem determined to protect something besides the privacy of their troops.

“As the number of reporters there dwindles further ... the kind of work they are able to publish becomes very important,” Glanz said. They are perceived as a problem by the military brass because they “are the only people preventing [the brass] from telling the story the way they want it told.”

Capturing the brutal realities of war is a tradition in this country dating back at least to Matthew Brady, and it is undoubtedly part of why Americans, regardless of their politics, have come to know and revere the sacrifices made by generations of soldiers.

When this war began, the government banned photographs of coffins returning to United States soil. If the government chooses to overmanage the wages of war in Iraq, there is a real danger that this new generation of veterans, whose ranks grow every day, could come home to a place where their fellow Americans have little idea what they have gone through.

The writer is a columnist for The New York Times.

Copyright 2007 New York Times. Reprinted with permission.