Jules Crittenden knows firsthand how journalistic independence and embedded reporting can clash.
In a story for the Boston Herald, he relates how he saw a soldier return to his tent drunk. The experience tested Crittenden’s loyalty to those in the Army unit in which he is embedded and his loyalty to his role as a journalist.
It also raises a warning flag for all reporters engaged in any type of embedded reporting. The closer journalists get to the community they cover, the greater the challenge to their independence. You see that danger, for example, when some police, political, or business reporters begin adopting the language and mentality of their subjects and sources.
That doesn’t mean journalists can’t try to get closer to their subjects so they can understand them better. In fact, I recently recommended embedding journalists everywhere as a way to improve the accuracy and authenticity of their reporting.
But how close is too close?
Let’s look at Crittenden’s experience again. What options existed for him? Cover the incident independently and unilaterally, and risk losing connections to sources for future stories? Or trade silence now for better stories later?
In an Embedded Journal written for Poynter Online, Crittenden candidly confesses considering the consequences of his actions. In fact, he writes that he offered to remain silent without even being asked. As it turned out, what happened after the incident prompted him to write about it. The military people in charge told him he could write whatever he wanted to write.
I commend Crittenden for disclosing his dilemma so openly and honestly. And I agree with him that he should “think twice before I say the words ‘that didn’t happen’ again.”
Those opposed to the embedding arrangement with military will see Crittenden’s initial instinct — to protect the people he has been assigned to cover — as an example of what they fear.
Bill Schiller, foreign news editor for the Toronto Star, questions how independent journalists can be when they are embedded. He discussed his concern during an interview on a Canadian current affairs program that we both participated in. He noted that that their dependence on the U.S. military, and their signed agreements, circumscribe their freedom.
None of the Star‘s reporters in the Middle East is embedded. And Schiller felt strongly enough about the issue that he even had someone contact The New York Times, whose news service he uses in his newspaper. He wanted to find out which of their reporters were embedded and identify them in his paper so his readers would know.
Other editors, however, see embedded reporters as an opportunity for the human story. Joe Strupp, in the Feb. 24 issue of Editor & Publisher, quotes a number of editors who felt fine about having reporters embedded with military units. The editors contacted by Strupp expressed “little or no objection” to the military’s ground rules.
As I noted in my previous article about embedding, I see what the military has done as a technique journalists can use in other communities. If embedded reporting results in journalists living and experiencing the same environment as their sources, I believe it could lead to more accurate knowledge and understanding. And that might make possible more accurate and authentic journalism.
Let me explain how that might work. I’ll use an example created by Seattle University journalism professor Gary Atkins, who when he wrote about the “new journalism” emerging 30 years ago coined the term “hermeneutical journalism.” (Hermeneutics is a Greek word that means the art of interpretation.)
The example I remember involved having a journalist stand on the edge of a swimming pool. The journalist would write down everything he could about the pool by what he could observe around him. Then he would jump into the pool, come back out, and stand exactly where he had been standing before. The journalist would then write everything he could feel based on the experience.
Embedded reporting is not the enemy of independence. Ignorance of our journalistic principles and values is the enemy.After that, the journalist would fuse the two events together. The combined version provides a more complete picture.
What I see embedded journalism offering is the opportunity to join the outside, detached version with the inside, immersed version for a fuller understanding of one’s surroundings. It reflects people’s actions, thoughts and feelings more holistically.
I also want to stress that I see the idea of embedded reporting as just one of a number of tools journalists can use. Both in the military, and outside the military, we need different types of journalists who can give us perspectives from various vantage points.
But I do see Schiller’s point. The idea of embedded reporting bothered me at first. Credibility for a journalist is as important as oxygen for human survival. Without it, we’re dead. And independence plays a critical role in one’s credibility.
We run the risk of compromising that credibility when we offer off-the-record opportunities or confidentiality. Agreeing not to report something, or to not identify the source, should be something journalists engage in only as a last resort. No other options should exist. And the need for the information must be essential to understanding and communicating an accurate story.
After all, a journalist who too often agrees not to report something could end up reporting nothing. But, I also think we need to examine this issue in context.
First, the military claims it offers its embedded reporters a lot of independence. The military has said journalists are free to write whatever they choose, except for information that might endanger troops. But journalists remain dependent as well. The military determines access and mobility. And the relationship the journalists establish could affect who will talk and how much they will say.
This is familiar territory for journalists. After all, we operate with some restrictions, official and unofficial, all the time.
Credibility for a journalist is as important as oxygen for human survival. Without it, we’re dead. We accept embargoes on medical stories (which I disagree with). We make agreements with police not to release information that might harm hostages (which I do agree with if we ascertain harm could occur). We form relationships with people on the beats we cover, exercising care about how we interact with them and what we choose to report (which we must do with great care to retain our integrity).
We also offer confidentiality, far too often in my view, to government sources. Some political journalists in Washington, D.C., personify the worst kind of embedded reporting. Some of them are more in bed than embedded.
Independence, like objectivity, remains better as a goal to aspire to than claimed as a unilateral and incontrovertible right. Journalists should make the final call about what they publish or broadcast. But they should do it after listening to different perspectives and weighing the journalistic purpose and ethical concerns involved.
Embedded reporting is not the enemy of independence. Ignorance of our journalistic principles and values is the enemy. When we forget who we are, and why we choose to be journalists, it threatens our freedom.
No one can take our independence away. But, if we’re not careful, we can give it away.
