THE MEDIA’S ROLE IN COVERAGE OF CONFLICTS:

JOURNALISTS’ EFFORTS TO GET THE STORY IN VIETNAM, KOSOVO AND IRAQ

 

BY MEG MURPHY

                                                             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     The media can be a potent tool in advancing the agenda of insurgent groups. Favorable press coverage of a group’s activities and goals can influence public opinion. A positive public view of an insurgent organization can result in invaluable support to an organization on a number of levels.

      This paper argue that news accounts of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s activities in the late 1990s up until the present by members of the Western press show how crucial the media can be to build public support for an insurgent organization.

    The KLA provides a unique example of an organization that few journalists knew much about when it emerged. Because news accounts provided, if not positive coverage, than not very negative coverage, the group gained political legitimacy. This political legitimacy resulted in the West aiding the KLA in its goal to rid the province of Serb rule.

     The KLA’s more recent press coverage in the years following the NATO air strikes, however, indicates a danger that a group’s negative actions can prompt harsher press scrutiny and damage the group’s political strength.    

     The analytical framework of this paper examines news coverage of events in Kosovo at the time of the KLA’s emergence, during the war, as well as subsequent accounts of the groups more recent activities.

      Some of the reporters who covered events in Kosovo have written books about their experiences. This paper draws upon those sources to get a sense of the dangers and challenges faced by reporters covering the KLA in Kosovo.

     In addition, accounts of news coverage in two other major conflicts in which the U.S, press was involved-- Vietnam and the current situation in Iraq -  are examined to see if there are any parallels between what reporters did to get the story in those venues and what happened in Kosovo.

     The paper also make suggestions as to how insurgents can best capture the public’s support for their cause, and tackle the flip side of that position in offering suggestions for how regimes can maintain-- and gain-- public support.

      The heart of most traditional news stories answers the following questions for readers in a formula that is familiar to both journalists and non-journalists alike: Who; What; Where; When; Why; and How?

      Covering the Kosovo Liberation Army in the late 1990s presented a number of challenges for reporters as they attempted to provide answers to those basic questions. The correspondents for print and broadcast outlets could count on delivering the "What" and “When” easily to readers and viewers about the aftermath of an insurgent attack. Providing the rest of the pieces – “Who; Where; Why; and How” of the story of the insurgents proved a great deal more challenging.

       

WHO WERE THE KOSOVO LIBERATION ARMY?

This seems an easy question to answer in normal situations, but trying to capture the background of an insurgent movement that seemed to many to emerge from nowhere was not a simple task:

 The name “Kosovo Liberation Army” first appeared on February 6, 1996 when six Serbian housing settlements were subjected to grenade attacks. After a lag of a few days news organizations were notified via a fax that the Kosovo Liberation Army was responsible.[1] 

      Another account finds the KLA engaging in violence at least as far back as 1992 and distributing leaflets telling Albanian to mount resistance to “the Serbian occupier” around the mid 1990s as well.[2]  

 Adding to the confusion over who the insurgents were was the fact that officials and local leaders in Belgrade and Pristina did not seem clear on whom exactly the KLA was at the outset, either.

      While officials in Belgrade claimed the KLA’s early attacks were evidence of Albanian terrorism, the leader of the Albanian pacifists, and President of the self-declared Albanian “Parallel State,” Ibrahim Rugova, had a very different theory: Rugova “said the Serb secret police had staged the attacks to discredit the Albanian Pacifist movements and to create an excuse to lash out at the Albanians.”[3]  

     Although the KLA primarily targeted police stations, it was not against claiming responsibility for the downing of an aircraft that had not been a subject of an attack, in order to gain more notoriety.[4]    

     One reporter demonstrated the challenge of dealing with the puzzle that was the KLA in an August 1998 piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

       "KLA fighters in Kosovo are arranged in five loosely connected factions that have only recently begun showing signs of cohesion. They are a mix of local villagers and returning ethnic Albanians, who only months ago might have been washing dishes in Germany, making pizzas in New York, or studying law in Belgium."[5]

     Were the Kosovo Liberation Army members thugs, freedom fighters or drug dealers? Those were some of the conflicting characterizations that journalists had to evaluate. As in many conflict situations, the description of the KLA varied based upon who was being interviewed. 

     What was for certain was that the growing influence of the KLA presented headaches for a number of disparate groups, according to one journalist, also writing in the summer of 1998:

     “In effect, it [the KLA] is denying Serbia sovereignty over a part of its own territory. …For the U.S. led international community the KLA is a double nuisance and a potential embarrassment. … [T]he international community cannot control it., since there is no known leadership to control …”[6].  Also, the fact that the KLA demanded nothing less than full independence at first was a concept that international leaders did not embrace.[7]

WHERE COULD REPORTERS FIND THE KLA?

      In trying to locate the elusive guerrillas who made many of their initial forays against local authority after nightfall, reporters were once again in for a challenge.

      While journalists covering previous conflicts, such as World War II, had a sense of the geography of a front where the two opponents were fighting, in Kosovo there was no front as skirmishes took place in scattered areas – a hallmark of guerrilla warfare.

     “The problem of finding the action in the war meant either confronting checkpoints manned by not only the Serb army and police, but also the KLA, or finding ways around them.”[8]

Enterprising reporters who attempted to find the action by using back roads were in for a nasty surprise because those rural roads were being mined by the Serbs.[9]                                     

 

WHY DID THE KLA EMERGE?

      Ironically, an accord that hammered out peace appears to have been the spark that ignited simmering resentments among ethnic Albanians toward Serbian control of Kosovo.

      The ethnic Albanians believed that their cause had been ignored by the negotiators at the Dayton Accords in Ohio who brokered a deal with Slobodan Milosevic attempting to bring peace to the ethnically fragmented Balkan region.[10] The accord focused on areas where violence had taken place, such as in Bosnia and Croatia. Regions that were relatively unscathed by major violence were not dealt with by the negotiating teams.

      And if the Dayton accords provided the spark, the situation in Kosovo had been building up toward a crisis for decades.

      The end of the 1980s marked a beginning of increased tensions between ethnic Albanians and Serbians who resided in the 4,400 square mile province bordering Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro.[11]

      While the ethnic Albanians residing in Kosovo make up roughly 90 percent of the province’s population, the area is also of high importance to Serbians because of the province’s history. Kosovo was where the Serbian Orthodox Church had its roots, and it is also the site of a major battle between the Serbians and the Turks in 1389.[12]     

      In 1989, Milosevic took back Kosovo’s autonomous status, which had been a provision of the 1974 Yugoslav constitution; by the next year, the leaders of Kosovo’s roughly 1.6 million ethnic Albanians declared independence.[13]

      The leader of the shadow government that emerged at that point and set up boycotts of state institutions, including schools by the Albanians was Ibrahim Rugova.[14]

      After nearly a decade of Rugova’s peaceful resistance toward the Serbs having little impact on the lives of Albanians in Kosovo, the scene was set for a more violent approach advocated by the KLA.[15]

HOW DID THE KLA GET ITS STRENGTH?

        The KLA emerged at a point in Kosovo’s history when the public was no longer content to let the situation remain as it had been for several years. The ideals of non-violence advocated by Rugova had not led the Serbs to change their position regarding treatment of the Kosovar Albanians.[16]   

        Funding for the organization appears to have come from members of the Albanian diaspora resettled around the world.[17] Weapons that the KLA used are believed to have passed through Albanian territory and in some cases came from army outposts in Albania looted when that country was in chaos in 1997. [18]

GETTING THE STORY

        Even before the journalists trying to eke out the story of the KLA began to report the story, they faced challenges in getting the go-ahead from their bosses in the newsroom—foreign editors and managing editors who could decide if a story was worth pursuing or not.

        One broadcast reporter met three businessmen in Switzerland in 1998 who told them they were KLA and planning to go to battle in Yugoslavia’s most Southern province. The reporter’s response, recounted to another journalist, was not to file a story. “What could I tell the BBC?” the reporter, Paul Wood asked. “That I met three Albanians in a café in Switzerland who told me they were about to start a war?”[19]

       After investing energy and reporting manpower in covering Bosnia, some editors suffered from what James Pettifer described as “Balkan fatigue.” He also notes a Pro-American bias at the news desk of The Times of London, which also may have provided a reason why some Kosovo stories he pitched never got a green light to proceed. “… [A]fter the great U.S, achievement at Dayton the problems of the Balkans were believed to have been solved.”[20]

     Writing in late 1997, a New York Times reporter describes a fruitless search for KLA members to interview:

       “In three days of traveling these hills dotted with farming villages of whitewashed clay houses…it was impossible to make contact with the guerrillas. But their presence was often palpable in the nervous answers, sidelong glances and throaty whispers that met inquiries as to where they [the KLA] could be found.” [21]

     The secrecy continued into 1998 when the mass media descended upon Kosovo in search of the story in the spring. If they were looking for a story to be handed to them, the media had not been properly briefed about the situation in Kosovo. Pettifer recounts some of the challenges the journalists encountered: “…since all Pristina KLA activity took place in the illegal underground in conditions of considerable danger and stress, the Albanians took care not to advertise the urban presence of the KLA to the media.”[22]   

     In his book The Road to Kosovo, journalist Greg Campbell describes how, armed with a tourist visa from the Montenegrin minister of information, he was forced to take a “sketchy” route to get to Kosovo in the summer of 1998 in a rental car from Zagreb,

    “… since the only battling forces in Kosovo were local, there was no piggybacking with international troops or U.S. soldiers …and with the beating the Serbs believed they got in the press during the past war, they weren’t about to make it easy for reporters to enter the new Yugoslavia.”  [23]

          Once the NATO planes began bombing of Kosovo in March of 1999, reporters faced hostility from the local officials that was far tougher than many veteran journalists recalled from covering other conflicts around the world.

          Several factors made covering the air strikes from Belgrade more feasible than from the Kosovo countryside or cities, including the fact that cameras were unwelcome by both sides and the fact that violence in Kosovo could flare up suddenly.[24] The “harsh logistics in the battle zones” also sent many seasoned journalists away from the center of the action.[25] Many reporters were also expelled by authorities who were hostile to the press, and found themselves covering Kosovo from a distance.[26]

      With the sounds of air raids beginning to reverberate, Serbs “backed by machine guns swooped down on Belgrade’s Hyatt Hotel, home base for most Western journalist, …trapping a group of news people on the rooftop and expelling about thirty [journalists].”[27]

       Foreign journalists had their cell phones confiscated; expensive television equipment damaged or stolen. One Pristina-based journalist watched a colleague’s rental car being burned as they were being forced to leave for Albania.[28]

     Even more unnerving was the perception amongst correspondents that the Serbs considered some news outlets and reporters especially threatening to their interests. The Cable News Network (CNN) was denounced as “a factory of lies,” by Serb officials and two Washington Post reporters found themselves behind bars before being expelled from the country.[29]

    The foreign editor at The Washington Post had a theory to explain why his reporters were singled out and why the Post was not allowed to send replacements in for them for ten days:

   Milosevic was shown a copy of a story the Post reporters wrote about Serb massacres in Kosovo by U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke when the two met.[30] This may have led to the Serb authorities zeroing in on the Post reporters for especially harsh treatment. 

   Once expelled from Kosovo, many reporters filed stories about the growing number of Kosovar Albanians forced to stay in refugee camps in neighboring countries.[31]

      “Those stories had one blessed advantage: they [reporters] did not have to contend with a fear factor on the ground inside Serbia the likes of which American journalists have not experienced in decades.” [32] The pictures of refugees and their first-hand accounts of being forced to leave their homes provided more dramatic fodder for journalists than the stories reporters could develop at the time in Kosovo.

      “In Yugoslavia, we have refugees and bombing as the leitmotifs, with the rest subordinated or missing,” wrote one observer complaining of incomplete coverage of Kosovo.[33] 

WAS THE WESTERN PRESS AND PUBLIC MANIPULATED BY THE KLA?

    Images of refugee families of several generations struggling to survive in the camps that had become their new homes provided dramatic story opportunities for broadcast and print reporters.

    The heart-wrenching photographs and videotape of Albanian Kosovar refugees trying to survive in grim refugee camps gave credence to the Western powers’ claims that the air strikes by NATO on Kosovo were justified on humanitarian grounds.

      One newspaper article refers to the allied air strikes on Kosovo as an example of “…the Clinton administration’s doctrine of virtuous power--the notion that the United States should intervene when other countries’ internal conflicts offend American values …”[34] The violent Serbian backlash against the KLA and Albanians in Kosovo provided the evidence that American ideals of respect for different cultures was not shared by the Serbian authorities.     

      It appears that the KLA was well aware that their early attacks on Serb police officials would result in a violent backlash against them by the Serbs. Yet communications issued by the KLA in 1996 insist that the group’s actions should not be considered as terrorist acts.

      “Occupiers might threaten as much as they want for the liquidation of the KLA. … [B]ut we are not scared because our roots and our support are in our people that knows very well that our war is not terrorist, but for the liberation.”[35]

 The violence led to innocent civilians becoming refugees and the pictures of those refugees provided justification for the air strikes. [36]   

     “The KLA’s guerrilla campaign was a deliberate attempt to provoke Belgrade into reprisals that would attract the West’s attention. Knowing it could not defeat Yugoslavia without NATO’s military support, the KLA waged a nasty insurgency that included assassinations of Serbian political and military officials.”[37]

      Another writer described the members of the Kosovo insurgency as “better politicians than Kosovo’s politicians when it comes to winning over the Clinton Administration.”[38]This comment reflects the lack of progress achieved by the non-violent approach advocated for nearly a decade by Rugova and his followers against the Serb presence in Kosovo.

       Once the Clinton Administration was won over, the information provided to reporters by the U.S. State Department further bolstered the KLA’s aims:

        “…James P Rubin, Madeleine Albright’s spokesman and confidant at the State Department …has played a surprising operational role in elevating the international profile of the KLA’s

young leadership. The KLA skillfully used contacts with Rubin to appropriate the image of official U.S. support during NATO’s war on Serbia.”[39]

       One example of a Rubin comment to a journalist shows a pro-KLA spin: according to an account by a reporter working for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. “Rubin replied that people employing terrorist tactics should stop, but that not all KLA attacks were terrorist actions,” in response to a question about “…whether Washington was concerned that NATO threats against Belgrade were giving a green light to the Kosovo Liberation Army to expand its attacks.” [40]

      Rubin and Hashim Thaqi, the political director of the KLA, also appeared to observers to have a strong bond. “Thaqi started calling from inside Kosovo to tell me what was going on in the war, Rubin said.”[41]

      Gaining the ear of high-level Washington officials marked a dramatic upswing from an earlier description of the KLA as “terrorists” by the U.S. envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard.[42]

SHIFT IN PERCEPTIONS OF THE KLA

     But more recent news events in the province and news coverage in the West indicate that the KLA’s image has been badly bruised by the behavior of some of its members. Reportage and commentary about the KLA following the UN’s arrival in Kosovo has taken on a harsher edge regarding the organization than early pieces about the organization.

       In July of 1999, Mark Almond, writing in the National Review chided KLA supporters:  

    “Those who romanticize the KLA as selfless freedom fighters and bristle at any suggestion that the group funds itself out of racketeering are as naïve as fundraisers for [the U.S. organization the Irish Northern  Aid Committee,[43]] Noraid who think the IRA hasn’t supplemented its income over the years through bank robberies and protection money.” [44]

        The New Statesman on Dec. 13, 2004 quotes the former UN commander in Bosnia, Major General Lewis Mackenzie making some harsh comments about the KLA:

       “The Kosovar Albanians played us like a Stradivarius violin. … We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure Kosovo. We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early 1990s and we continue to portray them as the designated victim today, in spite of evidence to the contrary.”[45]  

        The result of Kosovo’s first democratic elections in the fall of 2000 showed “… a stunningly abrupt loss of power for the Democratic Party of Kosovo, a group formed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)…”[46] Western officials claimed that the party led by Thaqi threw away the goodwill it had acquired during wartime, when its members’ behavior was perceived as “arrogant and abusive of power.”[47]

AMERICAN PRESS COVERAGE OF OTHER FOREIGN CONFLICTS COMPARED

      While it took several years for press coverage in Vietnam to take on a questioning tone, coverage of Kosovo and the war in Iraq have followed different patterns.

       The Kosovo air strikes received negative coverage almost immediately with reporters critiquing “Operation Allied Force [‘s] …small target list…to its refusal to consider ground invasion, to its seemingly ad-hoc approach to building up forces.” [48]       

       In Iraq, while the lead up to war was met with little journalistic criticism, the tone of many articles took on a harsher tone very soon after the invasion began. It went from a “gee-whiz” type of coverage of the pyrotechnics of the initial bombings, and shifted to a more worried tone, with One CNN reporter describing an early battle as “another messy, frustrating combat situation.”[49]      

      A common theme that runs throughout commentary on news media coverage of war is the impact of emerging technologies on the abilities of reporters to get the story.

     During the American Civil War, it was the telegraph that was the latest advance that allowed journalists to get their stories to editors back home without having to use slow trains or couriers on horseback to carry their information.[50]

    In Vietnam, broadcast reporters had the new advantage of lighter cameras to shoot stories right on the battlefield. This gave the journalists a remarkable way of showing the horrors of war to their viewers back home in the States.[51] Even though the images shown were not happening in real time because of the need to develop and ship the film to a broadcast site, the impact of seeing wounded soldiers and hearing gunfire was nonetheless quite dramatic.

     Vietnam has often been described as the watershed conflict that forever changed how the U.S. military and press relate to each other. There are differing opinions about whether or not press reports questioning the U.S. government’s role in Vietnam helped erode public support for the war stateside, and eventually hastened America’s withdrawal from Vietnam.[52]

      There is, however, little doubt that ever since Vietnam the press has played an important role in how the public perceives military missions.

      Vietnam reporters armed with lightweight cameras had few restrictions on their travel in the war zone. The things they witnessed on the battlefield often did not correspond to the information provided at official military briefings in Saigon, nicknamed the “Five O’clock Follies.”[53]

      Print reporter Stanley Karnow recalled how easy it was to gain battlefield access in Vietnam during a 2004 interview on National Public Radio:

       “… [W]e could go anywhere we wanted. If you wanted to go into action, you would just go down to the black market in Saigon and buy yourself a helmet and uniform and a pair of boots, go out to the airport, see a helicopter that’s going off somewhere; you say, ‘Can I come along?’ and they say “Fine,” and you go.’”[54] 

    Kosovo was the first time that the Internet gained widespread use to tell the story of a conflict.[55] The public has become more comfortable surfing the World Wide Web in the years following the Kosovo conflict, and many people in all walks of life have posted their opinions and creations on blogs. Blogs emerged post-Kosovo as a tool for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to share their thoughts with the world. Other technology, such as the cell phone and digital video, has allowed the public to share their views with friends and strangers, even if those people are located around the world. 

     Soldiers in Iraq now are in a sense becoming, if not exactly journalists, than eyewitnesses to history as they record their experiences on blogs and post them for people back home to read.[56]

             Coverage of the ongoing war in Iraq has developed differently than the experiences of reporters covering the air strikes in Kosovo and the first war in the Gulf.

       During the first Gulf War, journalists were kept on an extremely short leash by military officials. Discouraged from traveling independently, many reporters got their stories via daily press briefings. Even though briefings were fairly frequent and often provided by Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, himself, the coverage suffered as a result of the restrictions.[57]

      Debra van Tuyll, a communications professor who has written a book on the topic of press coverage of war, noted the limitations placed upon reporters trying to get the story from the Gulf War in 1991 when she was interviewed last year by a New Mexico paper.   

      Broadcast and print journalists “…could not travel anywhere in the war zone without a military escort and could not talk to soldiers without military permission. … [W]ar  coverage devolved into lots of stories about the technology of the Patriot missile and behind-the-lines reporters reporting on their own courage.”[58]

       Ironically, Van Tuyll describes the Persian Gulf War as “probably America’s best-covered and worst-covered war.”[59] Her point is that while the reporters were hamstrung by military rules that kept them from venturing away from press briefings, technological advances had led to the reality of the war being covered nonstop, twenty-four hours a day. America’s Cable News Network made a name for itself during the Gulf War, yet its correspondents also were limited in how far they could roam. While the technology was in place during the Gulf War for advanced 24-hour coverage, the ability of reporters to provide unscripted, enterprising reportage from beyond the briefing tent was lacking.

     Once unwrapped, the concept of a 24-hour-news cycle has only continued to grow in the intervening years between the wars in the Gulf. The constant demand for fresh news at shorter intervals than in pre-CNN days has resulted in several changes in how the press covers stories, especially military actions by the United States.

     “We are reporting for a public that checks back with their favorite websites four, five, six times a day, and they expect to see updated news,”[60] according to an Associated Press deputy managing editor.

      Reporting an event can eat up only so much actual airtime, and the remaining time is likely to be filled with experts and commentators giving their opinions on the news of the hour.

      “The result [of a 24-hournews cycle] is that the media sphere is filled not with reporting-after all there are limits to how many times a piece of information can be repeated—but with commentary and speculation.”[61]

     It is this expanding area of commentary that puts the most pressure on the military leadership. They need only flick on the television to see talking heads debating the rationale behind their latest decisions, and the subsequent results on how the war is going for the Americans.

    “As information flows out of the battle space more quickly, it becomes more feasible for external groups to exert influence through their political response to events. News about responses flows back to the theater commanders and troops as well as to national command authorities.”[62]

      The phenomenon of more analysis is largely driven by this need to fill airtime. The effect of the availability of more information to critique faster is naturally of major importance, but the talking heads would nonetheless opine for an hour if given an hour. With the increase in information available, the pundits can fill that hour-long air vacuum with comments about four different subjects. The end result of an hour of airtime being filled with commentary is unaffected by how much news has arrived fresh from the battlefield.

    Not only do the military leaders on the field have to deal with the pressure of being second-guessed by pundits, they also have the discomfort of knowing the brass back in Washington is likely watching the same critique of their actions.

     After media dissatisfaction with access to the troops during Gulf War I and the need to fill a news hole that now demands new copy and video continuously, embedding reporters in the second Gulf War with soldiers may initially have seemed a boon to journalists and their producers and editors.

     But the reality of embedding reporters amongst the troops has not necessarily resulted in stronger, more critical coverage of the situation in Iraq. There is a danger that a reporter spending all of his or her time with a particular military outfit will get bogged down in recounting the minutiae of daily life on the battlefield. While such reporting is important to give context to the experiences of  soldiers, there is a danger that the up close approach to war reporting will cause journalists to lose track of the big picture of what is going on in Iraq.[63]

     Embedded reporters face a “…loss of context and the potential for confusion and mistake. Reporters traveling with an individual combat unit could only know, at best what was happening with one group.”[64]

      One reporter, who covered Vietnam for United Press International, even goes so far as to describe embedded reporters as “a real barrier towards public understanding of what is going on there.”[65] The reporter said that Vietnam-era reporters had advantage over today’s journalists.

    “Reporters could cover Vietnam. You could go where you felt the story was at any time. …now, of course, with the situation being so dangerous, I don’t think you can just go into a home or shop and just interview somebody the way you could in Vietnam.”[66] 

      Another potential pitfall of assigning journalists to embed with a particular group of military personnel is that the reporters’ stories take on a “bullish” pro-soldier tone since they are closely involved with the daily life of the unit. That pro-soldier position may be interpreted as pro-war by some readers and viewers.[67]

PROTECTION OF JOURNALISTS UNDER THE LAWS OF WAR

       With journalists embedded with the military receiving almost the same treatment as members of a platoon of soldiers, questions about both their safety and status emerge.

       As civilians who do not take direct part in hostilities, the Geneva Convention provides that journalists,  “ …shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations. … [And] shall not be the object of attack.” [68] But if the journalists now look just like soldiers, and have received training like soldiers, what does those changes affect the journalists’ status? Obviously, a certain blurring has occurred, which has the potential to take the journalists out of the protected category of civilians.

      According to the commentary of Protocol I to the Geneva Convention, a journalist can “…risk losing effective protection …if he closely follows a military unit engaged in action or if he gets too close to a military objective.”[69] A journalist also dresses just like a combatant at his own risk, the commentary notes, because, “On the battlefield a combatant cannot reasonably be asked to spare an individual whom he cannot identify as a journalist, i.e., as a protected person.”[70]

      But in a chaotic environment such as Iraq, where bombings are frequent and result in mass casualties, it is unlikely that a journalist’s civilian clothing will provide any safety. Protected status as a civilian under the Geneva Convention in reality provides little security for journalists working in war zones. Even with the protections of the Geneva Convention in place, Iraq has proven a dangerous place to be a reporter.

          Recently, the International Federation of Journalists announced that it has plans to provide the United Nation’s Security Council with a draft resolution calling on states to punish those that harm journalists. Some cases might wind up in the International Criminal Court, according to the proposal.[71]   The announcement was made at the World Electronic Media Forum in Tunisia in November. In light of that proposal, UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan expressed the view that “it is the UN’s responsibility to defend the rights of journalists to be able to work free of intimidation and violence.”[72]

           There have been previous efforts intermittently for decades[73] at the United Nations to establish global standards for protecting journalists through the creation of reports and draft conventions. Yet no major guidelines have been established to date,[74] because of what one scholar described as “… [T]he historical lack of initiative in the protection of journalists by the United Nations.”[75] 

         The need for some standards to protect working journalists appears obvious in light of the sobering milestone that reporters covering the current war in Iraq reached recently:  In terms of journalists and their support staff killed in the conflict, the number of fatalities since March 2003-- 81 as of August-- surpassed the number of reporters killed in Vietnam-- 63 journalists-- during hostilities there from 1955 to 1975, according to the BBC. [76]

      Fifty of the journalists killed in Iraq died at the hands of insurgents or unidentified attackers. Surprisingly, American troops are believed responsible for thirteen deaths of members of the press and “…there is widespread suspicion that American troops do not take adequate precautions to try to ensure the safety of journalists.”[77]

    An important reason why there are so many fatalities amongst journalists and their assistants is the fact that many Western news organizations are employing Iraqis to obtain news that may   then be written or broadcast by a Western reporter on the news organization’s permanent staff. These locals are putting their lives at risk to bring back the important stories for their employers. Also, the fact that they are locals working for Westerners yet living among Iraqis may make them targets for violence.[78]

    “… [I]t’s just too dangerous for foreign journalists [in Iraq],” explained Chris Warren the president of the International Federation of Journalists during an interview for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

      “… [The local journalists are] often paid as contractors, and so they’re under pressure to deliver results in ways that Western journalists aren’t and ultimately pay the price. …increasingly we are seeing journalists die because of our demand as news consumers for better pictures, for better stories…” [79]

      One international organization that monitors the safety of journalists around the world, Reporters Without Borders, drew up a “Charter for the Safety of Journalists in War Zones” in 2002.[80] In the Charter, the group asserts that even if international law gave protection to journalists in theory, there is no guarantee that such laws would be respected by warring parties.[81]

       Reporters Without Borders therefore created eight principles that the organization says will “help prevent or reduce risks faced by journalists working in dangerous situations” if media managers apply them.[82]  The eight principles are the following: “Commitment; Free will; Experience; Preparation; Equipment; Insurance; Psychological Counseling; and Legal Protection.”[83]

       Some of the above principles are simply common sense provisions, such as ensuring that journalists in hot spots have safety equipment,  preparatory training in first aid and insurance should they be injured. Any sound newsroom manager would agree that those provisions would be minimum requirements that need to be met before shipping a correspondent to a war zone. Reporters Without Borders also reiterates the legal protection accorded journalists as civilians under Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, and that breach of the Protocol can constitute a war crime.[84]

      The remaining principles are a bit more complex and illustrate some interesting views on how to improve the lives of war zone journalists and their assistants: The first principle, Commitment, calls on “The media, public authorities and journalists themselves … [to] seek ways to assess and reduce the risks in war zones or dangerous areas by consulting each other and exchanging all useful information.”[85]

    This emphasis on collaboration between journalists and public authorities points out a potential information gap that can result in the press not having a firm understanding of  the dangers of a given area, if not adequately briefed by those in command.

    Perhaps most importantly, the Charter calls for Free Will,[86] in essence, the ability of reporters to refuse an assignment without professional penalty. The Charter notes, “In the field, the assignment can be terminated at the request of the reporter or the editors after each side has consulted the other and taken into account their mutual responsibilities.”[87] Fear of being fired or being demoted away from high-profile war coverage can lead journalists to take foolish risks in pursuit of a story. The provision of free will is a creative attempt to address that dilemma.

    Two other provisions of the Charter show that the document was drawn up based upon past experiences of journalists who apparently provided feedback to its drafters. These provisions are Experience and Psychological Counseling.[88]  By experience, Reporters Without Borders means that only mature reporters should be sent to war zones.[89] And if green first-time reporters are used, they should be partnered with a journalist who has more experience in combat situations.[90]

     Partnering inexperienced reporters and taking the time to select only seasoned journalists for the challenges of war reporting makes sense. There are obviously a great deal of variables in covering a conflict, and veteran journalists are more likely to have experience in coping with a wide range of situations. Even if this experience was in a domestic setting, a reporter with several years of on-the-job training will be less likely to get rattled in the face of chaos than a cub reporter.

      By calling for psychological counseling to be available for journalists returning from a combat zone,[91] the Charter is thinking about the needs of members of the press even after the war has ended. That seems an important point because embedded reporters in particular may be troubled by battle flashbacks just as soldiers might experience flashbacks. Access to counseling might ease the transition back to a stateside newsroom for those that have seen and reported on a war’s horrors.

      In all, the Charter brings some important aspects of a journalist’s life as a war correspondent to the public’s attention. It would seem a useful document to be distributed in newsrooms and in military media centers.             

 

A SKEPTICAL PRESS CORPS?

            Many observers say 1968 and coverage of the Tet Offensive marked a shift toward more skeptical reporting by the press about the Vietnam War. Skepticism was also prevalent during the Kosovo air strikes, yet many believe the press fumbled and did not adequately question members of George W. Bush’s cabinet about their rationale for launching a war against Saddam Hussein that would once again send American troops into a Middle Eastern combat zone.

     An interesting facet of the prewar and early reporting on the Iraq conflict was the short shrift given to anti-war protestors:

       “…[B]efore the 2003 war began, media treatment tended to …[portray] protestors to accentuate their marginality and irrelevance to policy, undercounting their numbers, underplaying their substantive arguments and  focusing on the antics of the most outlandishly attired.”[92]

      This approach to covering the anti-war movement is a function of several factors: First, the antiwar side did not have a unified voice, while the administration had skilled spokesmen at the White House and the Pentagon spinning the story the way the administration wanted it portrayed. It reflects a certain laziness on the part of the press that many seemed content to have the story fed to them by official sources instead of cultivating sources amongst war protestors.

      That’s why the emergence of Cindy Sheehan this past summer has given a boost to the anti-war movement. Camping in front of the President’s summer retreat in Crawford, Texas was inspired because she capitalized on the fact that there were a slew of reporters stuck in Crawford with little to cover except the president enjoying his vacation. Her story was heart-wrenching since she had lost a son in Iraq, and it was visual because of her encampment.

     Equally important, the story landed right in the laps of reporters who, far from media hubs in Washington or elsewhere, had few other stories on which to focus their attention. The last point is important because, while, there is a great deal of laziness amongst the press corps, many journalists simply are spread too thin by their editors and bosses. The result is that reporters must often rely on stories that require little additional fact-checking or reportage in order to meet the requirements of the daily news hole. 

BLOGGERS PROVIDE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS OF WAR

      The war in Iraq is the first conflict where the soldiers themselves have acted as reporters by creating their own blogs. For some of the blogs authors, the goal is to provide a more accurate portrayal of what is going on in Iraq than the accounts they see filed by professional journalists. Others use the blogs as another way to communicate with friends and family back home, with no overt journalistic aspirations.[93]

      As soldier-created blogs have popped up across the landscape of the web, one Financial Times journalist Ian Buruma, notes the blogs are filling a void that is no longer addressed by mainstream news outlets.[94]

     “Being corporate, the MSM [mainstream media] have tended toward caution and blandness. The smug assurance of being part of the establishment does not leave much room for mischief.”[95] Buruma identifies bloggers as the new “main creators of anti-establishment mischief.”[96]

     Blogs provide an outlet for soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere to tell their version of events, which in some cases represents a rejection of the war they are seeing portrayed in the traditional American press.[97]

    Blackfive, a blog operated since 2003, and located at www.blackfive.net, has received two million visitors as of February.[98] “Regular Americans want to hear about the good that soldiers are doing.”[99] According to the author of the blog, who is a former Army officer now posting from the States. The author’s goal is “to highlight the good that our military men and women do every day.”[100]

     Another blogger, operator of the Mudville Gazette web log, www.mudvillegazette.com, emphasized the ease of getting one’s message to the public: “It doesn’t cost a thing to set the record straight, tell it like it is and put all those folks who’d claim to speak for you in their place. …The Web is changing the information flow in the world and those who aren’t in on it are living in the past.”[101]

     As soldiers blog from anyplace someone can gain web access, including Internet cafes in Iraq, military officials have taken notice of the phenomenon. Blogging is permitted if the creators of the web log “do not disrupt discipline in their units, make statements on behalf of the commanders or the Army as a whole or reveal operational details that could aid attackers.”[102]

     Security of the blogs is a concern because of the ease with which the other side could intercept the solders’ transmissions. “In WW II it was a written diary and only compromised if physically taken from soldiers. …Now, it is near real-time and accessible to all, including the enemy,”[103] a public affairs officer in Iraq observed.

    As of April, the military requires that any service member in Iraq who “owns, maintains or posts to a web site or web log,” register their sites formally with their commanders.[104] The new policy also provides example of items that cannot be posted, including information about casualties and incidents that are subjects of ongoing investigations.[105]

    While the registration requirement led some to abandon blogging, at least one soldier plans to defy the rules:

      “I’m taking a risk by doing it, but I don’t think I can be objective if the Army knows who I am and can censor me at any time. … I work hard to make sure that I don’t compromise operational security, but I know the Army won’t trust me to make that judgment.”[106]

                                                   INSURGENTS AND THE PRESS           

     The actions of insurgents, who continue their attacks on better-funded and larger numbers of opponents in traditional military units, provide an example of a particular type of warfare-- guerrilla warfare. Examples of such war waged by underdogs against more experienced warriors date back centuries, and the phrase guerrilla itself was coined during the Napoleonic era.[107]

      But a modern twist has shown guerrilla warfare to be part of what has been described in roughly the last fifteen years as fourth-generation warfare.[108] Fourth-generation warfare represents a departure from the way wars were fought in earlier generations because it is enabled by globalized, modern society, where communications and travel occur at a faster pace than ever before.[109]

      While the first three generations of warfare encompassed, in order, big armies; use of heavy weapons; and maneuvering of airplanes and tanks to defeat an enemy, fourth generation warfare is different. Fourth-generation warfare encompasses terrorists as “the paradigmatic fourth-generation warrior.”[110]

      “Now we are supposedly in the fourth-generation of warfare wherein wars are waged asymmetrically. Central to these arguments is that the modern nation-state no longer has a monopoly on war because of the new era of globalism.”[111]

      Although improved global technology like the Internet means “greater coordination [around the world] but [asymmetric] terrorism/guerrilla methods are largely the same—assassination, ambush, bombings terrorism and propaganda. The aim is the same as well – control of local populations to establish an alternative for of government.”[112]

      With one of the main tools in the guerrilla’s arsenal being propaganda, the role of the press is crucial to the success of the insurgent movement achieving its goals. Propaganda is not news, but cleverly spun propaganda has made it into press reports many times in the past.

      One of the problems for reporters operating in a war zone is that it is very difficult to verify the accuracy of what either side in the conflict is saying. Factors that increase the difficulty include unfamiliarity with a war-torn region; lack of local contacts to provide verification; lack of language skill in the native tongue; as well as the difficulty of functioning normally in a chaotic war zone.

      These difficulties add to the challenges in filtering out fact from propaganda, and can result in items that prove later to be propaganda winding up in print or on a broadcast.

         “You do the best you can,” recalled R.C. Longworth, the Chicago Tribune’s former chief European Correspondent. “You spend all day talking with everybody you can find; you try to sort out the stuff that seems like the most obvious lies. Something that seems preposterous might be true. …You put it all together and you say, gentle reader, make up your own mind.”[113].

     As insurgents gain access to the Internet and other means of high tech communication, like cellular phones, guerrillas can, and do reach out the press corps as never before. Longworth remembers reporters providing colleagues with the cell phone numbers of KLA members in Albania, where he spent time during the Kosovo conflict.[114]

     “It’s a PR operation. …We knew were being courted, Longworth said. “It’s a mutual thing, it’s a business deal and both sides know it. …The Serbs were doing the same thing in Belgrade. Both sides are selling their point of view.”[115]

      There is a danger that the press might become a mouthpiece for a given organization. If a certain reporter or news outlet allows itself to be used in that way frequently, the public will likely question whether the reporter or the news outlet is maintaining an objective stance toward the insurgents.

HOW INSURGENTS SHOULD DEAL WITH THE PRESS

     There are several things an insurgent organization should keep in mind when dealing with the press:

      First of all, the press is in all likelihood very anxious to speak to members of an insurgency. In Kosovo in the early 1990s, journalists trekked about in the countryside in search of KLA members to interview. In order to tell the story of this mysterious group, the journalists braved primitive and dangerous roads and attempted to overcome the distrust of locals in Kosovo for the foreign press. Because an insurgent group has an air of danger about it, many adventurous reporters try to be the first to reveal the group’s story.

     When the press does find an insurgent operation’s nerve center – and a smart reporter will eventually do so—wise insurgents are prepared to tell their story in a compelling manner. Guerrillas need to select a poised spokesman who is fluent in many languages and who presents an image that is strong. A strong presence does not mean that a spokesperson needs to be dressed like a banker. On the contrary, a certain amount of military apparel might present the image that the insurgent group is a legitimate military force.

     Insurgents would be smart to limit their terrorist actions to acts that did not harm civilians. Insurgents in Iraq have not followed this advice. As a result, they have damaged support for their actions amongst the Iraqi people. In Kosovo, the KLA members for the most part concentrated their attacks on Serb police and other military-type targets. This was a smart strategy because it reinforced the fact that the group was in opposition to official Serbian leadership and were not terrorists.

     Another smart maneuver on the part of the KLA was disseminating the pictures of suffering Kosovar Albanians who were left homeless after Serb crackdowns. The photos stirred the heartstrings of the international public in a way that no press release could ever match.

     In order to get its point across to the press, an insurgent group should be prepared to document its assertions. This may mean taking reporters on excursions to visit battle sites or the homes of victims of oppression.

     An insurgent group’s membership should be aware that their counterparts in the regime will be selling their own version of events to the press. It is therefore necessary to anticipate what the other side is likely to say. This anticipation should include concrete evidence or actual reliable witnesses to contradict the veracity of the regime’s position.

HOW MEMBERS OF A REGIME SHOULD DEAL WITH THE PRESS

     While there are some inherent advantages to being the regime, rather than an insurgent group when seeking press coverage, members of the regime must also work with the press to ensure that the regime is portrayed favorably in the news media.

      Among the advantages that the members of a regime possess is that they can claim to be the legitimate leaders of a country, and therefore have the support of the electorate. The leaders of a regime would be wise to reinforce to the press the idea that the insurgents are members of the fringes of the local society.

     Another way to diminish the potential power of an insurgent group is for the regime to emphasize the danger the insurgents’ actions pose to the public. In Kosovo, the Serb leadership got a boost from a U.S. diplomat who termed the KLA terrorists. This provided the regime with an excuse to retaliate against the insurgents/terrorists.[116]

     As the group in power, the regime has a built-in advantage –the trappings of state. It is very likely that the regime will employ professional spokespersons who are trained in how to promote a particular agenda and stay on message in the face of pointed questions from journalists. The regime does not have to hold press conferences in back alley locales like the KLA did in Tirana. More than likely, the regime can summon the press to a presidential palace or state office building when it wants to release some news for publication and broadcast. And because it is the regime speaking, the press will attend.       

THE FUTURE

     At this stage of the Iraq conflict, observers really cannot give a final opinion on whether the press has done a good job in covering the war. There were certainly missteps in not providing adequate questioning about Bush’s weapons of mass destruction claims that is certain. Would it be better if journalists gave more energy to big-picture stories on what is going on in Baghdad? Absolutely. But it is easy to sit in Chicago and criticize reporters who are working in an environment where bombs are going off all around them and where their colleagues have been kidnapped or killed by insurgents. Getting the story out of a war-torn country where most journalists do not speak the language is a very difficult endeavor. Any future studies of how the press corps fared in Iraq would do well to bear in mind that the conditions for journalists there are very difficult and stressful, as were conditions in Vietnam and Kosovo.

     The continuing pattern for centuries of war reportage being impacted and improved by technology is likely to remain a factor in coverage of future conflicts. Now that blogging has gained popularity with troops, soldiers in wars years from now will likely continue the blogging tradition begun in Iraq. For one thing, a blog allows soldiers to tell their version of events, which may differ from what the official military position is, or from what journalists had portrayed in stories. It also provides an efficient and creative way of sending news to friends and relatives. It is almost certain that improvements in technology will increase the speed and sophistication of the soldiers’ efforts at telling their stories themselves. Audiences who have grown accustomed to the availability of blogs will be ideal consumers for news outlets that incorporate blogs into their news products and websites.            

                     

 



[1] Stacy Sullivan, Be not afraid, for you have sons in America: how a Brooklyn roofer helped lure the U.S. into the Kosovo war 92 (St. Martin’s Press 2004). 

[2] Yugoslavia –‘Kosovo Liberation Army’ Profiled, PERISCOPE DAILY DEFENSE NEWS CAPSULES, April 29, 1997, at 2.

[3] Sullivan, supra.

[4]  Sullivan, supra at 151. See also World News Albanian Claim Discounted, Irish Times, Dec, 10, 1997, page unavailable.

[5] Jeffrey Fleishman, Kosovo Separatists May Be Losing Steam in Yugoslavia After Being Overpowered by Serbs, The KLA is Changing its Fighting and Political Strategies, PHILA.INQ., Aug.13, 1998 at A3

[6] Mihailo Crnobrnja, The Strength of the Kosovo Liberation Army, All Sides Must Deal with the Insurgents in Serbia, Globe & Mail (Toronto), July 17, 1998 at A17.

[7]  Id.

[8] James Pettifer, Kosova Express: a Journey in Wartime 158 (The University of Wisconsin Press 2005).

[9] Id.

[10] Alexander Nicholl & Stefan Wagstyl, World News: Kosovo Crisis: Serb Aggression Helps KLA to win Hearts and Minds: Kosovo Liberation Army: While the army’s effectiveness is unclear, there is no doubting its support in the province, Fin.Times, April 10, 1999, at 2.

[11] Factfile on Kosovo, Agence France-Presse, Oct. 23, 2004 English Wire  

[12] Id.

[13] Id.

[14] Chris Hedges, Many Quit Jobs to Join Kosovo Liberation Army: The Rapid and Startling Growth of the Armed Insurgency, Globe & Mail (Toronto), April 7, 1998, at A14.

[15] Mihailo Crnobrnja The Strength of the Kosovo Liberation Army All Sides must Deal with the Insurgents in Serbia, Globe & Mail (Toronto), July, 17, 1998, at A17.

[16] Id.

[17] Alexander Nicholl & Stefan Wagstyl, Kosovo Crisis: Serb Aggression Helps KLA to Win Hearts and Minds, Fin. Times, April 10, 1999, at 2.

[18]  Speculation Plentiful, Facts few about Kosovo Separatist Group, Balt. Sun, March 6, 1998, at 20A.

[19] Chris Stephen New Look KLA has vital role in talks for peace the Serbs call them terrorists but they see themselves as freedom fighters, Irish Times., Feb. 6, 1999. no page available. 

[20] Pettifer, supra note 8, at 97.

[21] Chris Hedges, Albanians Inside Serbia Set to Fight For Autonomy, N.Y. Times, Oct. 19, 1997, at Section 1.

[22] Pettifer, supra note 8, at 154

[23] Greg Campbell, The Road to Kosovo, a Balkan Diary 26 (Westview Press 1999).

[24] Don North, Covering Kosovo’s Carnage, 1999 Am.Jour.Rev. 21,1.

[25] Waging War on the Web, Hindu, April 22, 1999, at page unavailable.

[26] David Noack, Covering Kosovo: Forced Exodus of Press Leaves Reporters at a Distance, Editor & Publisher, April 3, 1999, Volume 132; Issue 14.

[27] Kevin McAuliffe, Kosovo: A Special Report How Correspondents are dealing with the hazards, harassments , and hassles of getting the news out of the Balkans, Col.Jour.Rev., May/June 1999 at

[28] Id.

[29] Id.

[30] Id.

[31] Id.

[32] Id.

 

[33] Robert C. Cuddy, Missing the Story U.S. Media Coverage of Kosovo has Been Incomplete at Best, Contra Costa Times, Opinion Section, May 23, 1999.

[34] Christopher Layne & Benjamin Schwarz, Was it a Mistake?; We were Suckers for the KLA, WASH POST, March 26, 2000, at B1.

[35]  Gafurr Elshani, KLA Kosovo Liberation Army Documents and Articles, (The Voice of Kosovo 2003).

[36] Id.

[37] Id.

[38]Jim Hoagland, Op-Ed., Gangsters or Good Guys? WASH POST, Aug. 19, 1999, at A21.

[39] Id.

[40] Elizabeth Sullivan, The Master of the Deadly Balkans Game, CLEVELAND PLAIN-DEALER, June 22, 1998.   

[41]  Hoagland, supra note 26.

[42] George Bogdanich, An eye for an eye?; From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the Ongoing ethnic Conflict in Kosovo, CHI.TRIB, July 11, 2004, at C1.

[43] Anne Applebaum, The Allure of the Terrorist Cause, Hamilton Spectator, Aug. 6, 2005, at F6.

[44] Mark Almond, Our Gang (Kosovo Liberation Army), National Review, July 26, 1999, at 36.

[45] John Pilger, Kosovo the site of a Genocide that never was- is now a violent ‘free market’ in drugs and prostitution. What does this tell us about the likely outcome of the Iraq war?, New Statesman, Dec. 13, 2004. 

[46] Jeffrey Smith, Party of Nonviolence Claims Victory in Kosovo Elections; Ex-Guerrillas Rejected in Heavy Voter Turnout, WASH POST, Oct. 30, 2000, at A21.

[47] Id.

[48] Rowan Scarborough, General Says Negative Reporting Masks Air-War Triumph, Wash. Times, May 18, 1999 at A3.

[49] Robin Anderson, That’s Militainment! The Pentagon’s Media-friendly “reality war,” Extra (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) May/June 2003. Http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1141, quoting Jim Rutenberg, A NATION AT WAR: Television; Bidding to Reflect a Shift in Action, N.Y.TIMES, Mar.25, 2003, at B14.

[50] Newseum News Museum online exhibit, War Stories, http://www.newseum.org/warstories/

[51] Id.

[52]Stanley Karnow and Nic Robertson Discuss How News Coverage Frames Our Understanding of War, NPR, All Things Considered Transcript, Dec.26, 2004.

[53] John Hughes, Pentagon and Press Can Both do Their Jobs, Christian Science Monitor, Nov.14, 2001, http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1114/p9s2-cojh.html.

[54]Stanley Karnow and Nic Robertson Discuss How News Coverage Frames Our Understanding of War, supra note 48

[55] Waging War on the Web, Hindu, April 22, 1999 at page unavailable.

[56] Patrick Hoge, Soldiers Download War Onto Web Sites; Postings Range From Family Communications to Graphic Battle Images, S.F.CHRON., April 10, 2005 at A1.

[57] Hughes, supra note 51.

[58] Paul Weideman, Rules of Embeddeness, The Santa Fe New Mexican, Sept. 10, 2004, at p-32.

[59] Id.

[60] Kim Campbell, Today’s War Reporting: It’s Digital, but Dangerous, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, Dec. 4, 2001, http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1204/p2s2-ussc.html

[61] Marion Just, Montague Kern and Pippa Norris, editors, Framing Terrorism: The News Media, the Government and the Public 48 (Taylor and Francis Books 2003).

[62] Id.at 47.

[63] Robert Entman, Projections of Power Framing News, Public Opinion and U.S.Foreign Policy 116 (University of Chicago Press 2004).

[64] Id.

[65] International Correspondents: Critique of Worldwide Media Coverage (CNN April 30, 2005).

[66] Id.

[67] Alessandra Stanley, Reporters Turn From Deference to Outrage, N.Y.TIMES, Sept, 5, 2005, at A14.

[68] Protocol II Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of Noninternational Armed Conflicts art. 13, June 10, 1977, 1977 U.S.T. LEXIS 465, 27-28.

[69] Protocol Additional to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977. Part IV: Civilian Population, Section III Treatment of persons in the power of a party to the conflict.Chapter III – Journalists: Commentary at Paragraph 2, section 3269 – The protection Granted Journalists. This commentary and other materials related to the Geneva Convention can be found at http://www.icrc.org.

[70] Id.

[71] BBC Monitoring Media Services: World Information Summit: UN Urged to Protect Journalists (BBC Broadcast Nov. 17, 2005).

[72] Id.

[73] Jennifer Lee, Peace and the Press: Media Rules During U.N. Peacekeeping Operations, 30 Vand.J.Transnat’l L. 135, 157(1997).

[74] Id. At 158.

[75] Id. At 160

[76] BBC Worldwide Monitoring: Analysis: More Journalists Killed in Iraq “Than During Vietnam War” – Watchdogs (BBC Broadcast Aug. 30, 2005).

[77] Id.

[78] The World Today: Record Number of Journalists Killed in 2004 (Australian Broadcasting Corp. Jan 18, 2005).

[79] Id.

[80] Charter for the Safety of Journalists Working in War Zones, Reporters Without Borders, http://www.reseau-damocles.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=404;www.damocles.org (2002).

[81] Id.

[82] Id.

[83] Id.

[84] Id.

[85] Id.

[86] Id.

[87] Id.

[88] Id.

[89] Id.

[90] Id.

[91] Id.

[92] Entman, supra note 58, at 118.

[93] Hoge, supra note 49.

[94] Ian Buruma, Blogs in the Machine Such is the Influence of the Weblog on the News Agenda That it has Helped to Create and Destroy U.S. Politicians. Should we Trust the Lone Operator with a Laptop?, Fin.Times. Weekend Magazine, March 12, 2005 at 22.

[95] Id.

[96] Id.

[97] Joseph R. Chenelly, The Blogs of War:Troops Offer ‘The Truth’ via web Journals, Army Times, Mar.14, 2005, at 14.

[98] Id.

[99] Id.

[100] Id.

[101] Id.

[102] Id.

[103] Id.

[104] Joseph R. Chenelly, Bloggers in Iraq Must Register Sites, Marine Corps. Times, July 11, 2005, at 32.

[105] Id.

[106] Id.

[107] Nathan A. Canestaro, “Small Wars” and the Law: Options For Prosecuting the Insurgents in Iraq, 43 Colum.J.Trannat’l L.73, 77 (2004).

[108] David W. Szelowski, Fourth-Generation Warfare Minus Five, Marine Corps Gazette, May 1, 2003,Volume 87, Issue 5.

[109] James P. Pinkerton, A Lesson in the New Paradigm of War, NEWSDAY [OP-ED], Mar. 2, 2005, at A42.

[110] Id.

[111]  Szelowski, supra note 105.

[112] Id.

[113] Interview with Richard Longworth, Former Chicago Tribune Chief European Correspondent (Oct.4, 2005).

[114] Id.

[115] Id.

[116] Pettifer, supra note 8, at 147.