Newspapers Trade Slots for Persian Gulf Duty

By: Joe Strupp Newspapers sending reporters to be embedded with military units in the Persian Gulf began receiving their assignments last week, sparking a flurry of slot trading, while a few papers took a pass on using all the spots they were given.

The Wall Street Journal received eight slots, but plans to use only seven. The Denver Post turned down one spot, and The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune gave up its only slot after the reporter slated to go pulled out and editors could not be assured of having a replacement embedded with a local unit.

Offered four slots, The Sun in Baltimore accepted only two, due to concerns that "embeds" might not produce a lot of news week after week, Foreign Editor Robert Ruby said. "It's easy for me to visualize one page one story coming from embeds each week," Ruby said. "It's harder to visualize week after week page one stories from multiple embeds."

The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, which received four spots, took only the two that were ground-based, fearing the Air Force and Navy slots might not bring them close to the action.

The Star Tribune in Minneapolis was given one slot each with the Marines, Navy, and Army, but traded its Navy slot to The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk for another Marine slot so it could try to place a reporter and photographer with the same unit. "We still don't know whether our reporter and photographer will be with the same troops," said Dennis McGrath, Star-Tribune nation/world editor. "But at least they're both with Marines." The Star-Tribune gave its Army spot to a McClatchy Co. sibling, The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash.

Cox Newspapers Inc. and CNN struck the most unusual deal, which allows the cable TV network to use five of Cox's eight slots in exchange for CNN correspondents providing content to Cox newspapers. Susan Stevenson, deputy managing editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cox's flagship paper, said the deal was a way for the paper to save resources, but still cover the fighting. "The slots remain ours," she said. The AJC wanted to keep more people home for possible coverage of domestic terrorism.

The Pentagon, which has given out more than 500 embedding slots to different print and broadcast news organizations, still declined to say exactly how many slots were given. Col. Jay DeFrank, director of press operations for the U.S. Defense Department, said Pentagon officials do not mind newspapers trading embedding slots, as long as it does not result in an imbalance of print and broadcast reporters among the units. "Our prime concern is that we are able to tell this story across a depth of media," he told E&P.

Most editors seem satisfied with their number of slots. "I think it is about right," said Marjorie Miller, foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times, which received eight slots and plans to fill them with six reporters and two photographers. "I have enough people to cover those and I'm not sure I want to put more people in a war situation."

The Washington Post also received eight slots, while USA Today took seven, the Chicago Tribune five, and The Boston Globe four. "Our view is to take them all and then, as we go along, ask if more are available," said Globe foreign editor James Smith.

The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch has one embed -- its first war correspondent since the Civil War -- heading to the region.

Few editors, DeFrank said, had complained about Pentagon restrictions on reporters, which include provisions for "security review" and flagging of "sensitive" information. "We have actually gotten compliments from people saying it is probably the best we could do," DeFrank told E&P. "I can't imagine how we could protect the security (of the units) and written less-restrictive ground rules."

Indeed, E&P discovered that most editors accepted the ground rules without a fight -- although many say they will watch how they are enforced. "They are written in such a way that they could help people report the story or be used to hurt the reporting," said Colin McMahon, foreign editor of the Chicago Tribune, which will have five embedded reporters out of 15 overall in the region. "We will see."

Nearly every editor said they were not worried about the embedded rules because they were not relying solely on the embedded reporters for war coverage, although, in some cases, nearly half of the reporters from a given paper were to be embedded. "Embedding is a bit of a gamble," said Ed Foster-Simeon, deputy managing editor of USA Today, which will have 16 reporters in the region, including seven embedded with troops. "You know you will get good stories, but do not know how frequently."

Jerry Seib, Washington bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, echoed that view. "You need reporters in different places," said Seib, whose paper received eight slots, but plans to use only seven. "We want value-added reporting."

Editors also denied that any reporters were declining slots due to fears of chemical war. One complaint, however, has been about the Pentagon's decision not to allow photographers and reporters from the same newspaper to travel together, despite the fact that broadcast reporters are traveling with their camera crews. DeFrank said it is based on the practice of giving each paper no more than one slot per unit.

While most reporters know the units with which they will embed, the dates for hooking up with troops vary depending on the unit. While some journalists had already linked with units in U.S. bases and Kuwait, others remained unsure when they would be joining the troops. "They didn't want reporters to join units and be sitting around for a month," said Philip Bennett, assistant managing editor/foreign for The Washington Post, which has two reporters in Kuwait expected to join troops there this week. Said Seib of the Journal: "Units are making their own decisions on when they want people. There are no simple answers."