This document discusses issues around objectivity and patriotism in war reporting. It explores how embedded journalists covering wars from within military units may struggle to maintain objectivity. Being embedded can cause reporters to develop close bonds with soldiers that cloud their judgment or prevent critical reporting. However, others argue embedding provides valuable context. Overall, there is no consensus on whether embedding helps or hinders objective reporting on wars.

1. Reporting on War
By Mark Donaldson

2. Can a journalist be both objective and
patriotic in covering wars?

3. • How do you define patriotism?
Cronulla riots?
Dying for your country?
Supporting Australia in sport?

4. How do we report on war patriotically?

5. News images of patriotism?

6. • How much the media
can get away with
reporting ‘objectively’
on a war is
overwhelmingly
determined by

7. “In news about international relations
journalists are not expected to balance
their presentation between pro and anti
American viewpoints… Only when foreign
policy generates sufficient division within
legitimate political circles, must media
balance be taken into account.” (Hackett,
231)
From - Decline of a Paradigm? Bias and Objectivity in News Media Studies
(1984)

8. Things for Consideration
• your opinion of Australia going to war immediately after 9/11
and how the media covered the war.
•your opinion of the Iraq invasion in 2003 and how the media
covered that.
•Your opinion of the Iraq War after no WMDS were recovered
and the media coverage of the war then.
•Your opinion of the war now and the media’s coverage.

9. Can journalists be both objective
and patriotic in covering wars?
If that’s what the public wants at the time then yes.

10. What effects can embedding
journalists in military units have on
the nature of news reported?

11. Embedded Reporters: What Are
Americans getting?
• Media’s eye is on the frontline rather than the country’s people.
• It’s a report of a reporter’s involvement in war rather than a soldier’s.
• Embedded reporters can become too close to the troops.
• Only gives reporter a limited vantage point on the war and is
questionable whether they can fully contextualise the news they
report.
• Term ‘embedded’ suggests a closeness that may erode journalists
role as fact checker.
• The ‘as it happens’ nature of live embedded reporting often results
in inaccurate relay of information.
Original doc can be found here

12. Case Study
• The Washington Post’s Lyndsey Layton lived on an
aircraft carrier ‘hanging out’ with fighter pilots for a
month. This led to pilots considering her as more of a
‘buddy’.
• One morning a pilot was exuberant about a successful
bombing mission.
• Due to the friendship she had developed with the pilot,
she had to ask herself some questions before reporting
on it:
• Would he want the world to know he was ‘buzzed’ about
bombings?
• Would it be fair to report these unguarded moments?
What would you do? Where would your priorities lie?

13. Layton said: “I included a
reference to this episode but I
handled it gingerly and didn’t
completely report what I saw. I’m
still not sure whether I made the
right choice then or now.” (Seib,
2004)
From - “Technology and empathy: The new war journalism” in Beyond
The Front Lines: How The News Media Cover a World Shaped By War
(2004)

14. Case Study
• Scott Bernard Nelson of The Boston Globe
• When the military unit he was embedded with came under fire, he
saw muzzle flashes coming from a nearby building.
• He yelled out to the ‘gunner’ of his vehicle and pointed out the
location.
• The gunner blasted the spot with his 0.5 caliber machine gun and
killed the sniper.

15. Reflecting on this Nelson said: “The question is
whether the coverage I provided was tainted as
a result. I’d like to think it wasn’t” (Seib, 2004)
Do you think it was tainted?
Is it the job of the journalist to be so involved?

16. Case Study
• Gordon Dillow of the Orange County
Register said being embedded with troops
affected the way he reported stories
because he saw everything the way they
did.
• “When some of my marines fired up a
civilian vehicle that was bearing down on
them, killing three unarmed Iraqi men, I
reported it- but I didn’t lead my story with it
and I was careful to put it in the context of
scared young men trying to protect
themselves.” (Seib, 2004)
• “When my marines laughed about how 0.5
calibre machine gun bullets had torn apart
an Iraq soldiers body, I wrote about that, but
in the context of sweet-faced, all-American
boys hardened by a war that wasn’t their
making.” (Seib, 2004)

17. Was Dillow’s close involvement affecting his
reporting for better or worse?

18. • Dillow said of himself: “The point wasn’t
that I wasn’t reporting the truth; the point
was that I was reporting the marine grunt
truth- which had also become my truth.”
(Seib, 2004)

19. Embedded journalism: good or bad in terms
of affecting the nature of news that gets
reported?

20. Mark’s Ridiculous Analogy
In a perfectly objective media world, media’s
coverage of wars would be treated like
umpires officiating international sporting
matches: they would not be involved if
their own country was involved.

21. Which means our neutral friends the Swiss
could just cover everyone’s wars and
everyone would be happy.
Australia’s next war correspondents?