U.S. Military Tries to Make Peace With Press

By: Joe Strupp With an invasion of Iraq possibly taking place in less than a month, many journalists who cover the military say the Pentagon is easing its restrictions on access to information and personnel, raising hopes that coverage of an attack might be more open than first thought.

"I'm hearing that there is a general thawing [in Pentagon restrictions]," said Jim Wright, an assistant metro editor at The Seattle Times and president of the recently created Military Writers and Editors. "There is a general feeling that the military is trying to give more access because it is in their best interest."

Most writers, in fact, agreed that any increase in media access to troops is aimed at helping improve the military's image, not at aiding reporters. "What is driving this is a fear that Iraq will win the propaganda war if reporters are not on the ground with troops," said Dave Moniz of USA Today.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, who declined to comment on specific plans for access in Iraq or on the government's motives, said the Defense Department is seeking to get reporters as close to the action as possible. "There will be more [access] than there has been in the past, certainly more than in Afghanistan," he told E&P. "We'd like to maximize those opportunities for reporters as the standard rather than the exception."

Other journalists who cover the military at bases around the country agreed that restrictions were being eased. "There are a lot of good signs here," said Sig Christenson, a military writer for the San Antonio Express-News, which covers Lackland Air Force Base among other military sites. "What they are doing to prepare us underscores a willingness to provide access."

Christenson is one of dozens of reporters who have participated in Pentagon-sponsored journalist-training programs the last two months at military bases that have taught reporters battlefield survival, military policy, and weapons expertise. The first sessions were conducted in November in Virginia at both the Quantico Marine Corps Base and the Norfolk Naval Station, with 118 journalists. The second round, held in mid-December at Fort Benning in Georgia, had 60 journalists. A third session, with another 60 journalists, is scheduled for this month at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Whitman said more than 400 journalists have asked to take part in the program.

Several military writers theorized that the military's more open attitude (for now) stemmed from an effort to improve positive coverage of the likely conflict, after mixed coverage during the Persian Gulf War and last year's Afghanistan campaign. "They lost the media battle," said James W. Crawley, an eight-year military writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune, speaking of those previous battlegrounds. David Wood, a Newhouse News Service reporter heading to Iraq soon, agreed. "Unless there are huge logistical difficulties, I think they are going to do it," he said of the promise that reporters would be "embedded" with troops. "It will work well for them."

A few journalists, however, said greater access to information had not happened so far, and they remain skeptical that a more positive relationship with the Pentagon would emerge in Iraq. Said Sean D. Naylor, a senior writer for the Army Times, a Gannett Co. Inc. weekly in Springfield, Va., "I haven't noticed any change."

The Union-Tribune's Crawley, whose beat includes military sites in and around San Diego, added that local base commanders had not opened up much. "It has eased some, but they are still less open than they were before Sept. 11," he argued. "They haven't really defined how much they will tell us." Most reporters shared Moniz's view that promises of openness mean nothing until they become reality: "There is a built-in skepticism because of what happened [with a lack of access] in Afghanistan."