Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq [Hardcover]

Bill Katovsky (Author), Timothy Carlson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2003

"The interviews crackle with immediacy." -The New York Times

"It is my hope that this outstanding piece of work will reach the widest possible distribution and readership." -Dan Rather, CBS News, on the John Burns interview

EMBEDDED is a collection of deeply emotional and highly personal accounts of covering the Iraq War. Many of the world's top war correspondents and photographers speak candidly about life on the battlefield. Here are articulate and heartfelt descriptions of fear and firefights, of bullets and banalities, of risking death and meeting deadlines.

With over sixty interviews conducted in Kuwait and Iraq shortly after many returned home, Katovsky and Carlson allowed these journalists to step outside their professional role as journalists and examine the lethal allure of combat reporting.

Here is CBS Evening News correspondent Jim Axelrod discussing the perils of racing to Baghdad while despondent over the death of a television colleague and being unexpectedly comforted by ABC News Nightline's Ted Koppel; Newsweek reporter Scott Johnson unwittingly driving into an ambush and then kicking out the windshield of his bullet-riddled car to escape the Iraqi gunmen; New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns's brave refusal to be intimidated by his Iraqi information ministry minders; and many, many more.
Each interview in EMBEDDED maps its own personal path and narrative arc, while presenting an emotional window to war and reporting. Taken individually, each offers a unique view of the most-covered war in history. Collectively, EMBEDDED is an eyewitness to history that will do for the war in Iraq what Michael Herr's Dispatches did for Vietnam.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In comparison to the Gulf War of 1991, in which the Pentagon controlled the news as tightly as possible, the war of 2003 was a wide-open affair for reporters. This was partly done to counteract propaganda coming from the Iraqi government; it was also an attempt to control and influence the news by keeping journalists under close watch. To this end, the Pentagon developed a "slick new public relations concept known as embedding." (xiii galley) Embedded journalists lived, ate, and traveled with the troops. They also came under enemy fire with the troops. In fact, as a group, the roughly 2,700 journalists in Iraq were more likely to be killed in combat than the quarter million American and British soldiers. Traveling with troops was generally safer and afforded better access, but what about journalistic ethics? That is question at the core of this fascinating book and one proves to have many different answers.

Embedded is a collection of interviews conducted between April and June 2003 of 60 journalists, public affairs officers, and freelance photographers from a wide range of print, television, and radio sources. Their stories convey information, impressions, and anecdotes that could not be included in their official reports and are therefore quite revealing. They confront not only the risks, and allure, of reporting from a combat zone, but of getting too close to the story to remain objective (if true objectivity is even possible). This personal and often moving collection offers great insight into the most covered war in history. --Shawn Carkonen

From Booklist

This collection of the stories behind the stories of the Iraqi war offers a rich and revealing look at emotions and images rarely seen in news reporting. Katovsky and Carlson interviewed 60 leading journalists who lived, ate, and traveled with U.S. troops. They begin with a brief history of the relationship between the military and the media and a discussion of the practice of embedding reporters, detailing the pros (greater access and immediacy of reporting) and cons (the greater risks to reporters' lives and their ability to be objective). The interviews include CBS News' Jim Axelrod, who is still mourning the loss of his colleague David Bloom, and Peter Baker of the Washington Post, who recalls the strain of covering a battle while worrying about his wife, Susan Glasser, who was also reporting from Iraq. Recollections range from the raw fear provoked by close calls in the battlefield to the boredom of daily briefings at the CENTCOM media center in Doha, Qatar. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 450 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592282652
• ISBN-13: 978-1592282654
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

what would be my three desert island books? thomas merton's seven storey mountain, tolstoy's anna karenina, and the portable faulkner...though i could go on and list another several hundred books, but that would be tedious and pedantic.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authenticity, September 12, 2003

By 

Martin James Higgins "American `Nam Vet" (Taliban-occupied Marin County, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq (Hardcover)

As much I strongly admired Ms. Garrel's intrepid journalism under fire account in her book (the title however makes me think of some '60s ... club in San Francisco, a place also known as Baghdad by the Bay), and though there are many choice passages in her NPR written-word narrative, for my money and historical value, I much prefer "Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq," by Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson, which packs an emotional wallop of 60 interviews with reporters from across the globe, including a revealing and harrowing account also from embedded NPR correspondent Eric Westervelt. Grenades, RPGs, sniper fire, and dodging death punctuate these 60 personal stories behind the news stories from the battlefield. Talk about deadlines. Sorry, Ms. Garrels, Embedded works because it reminds me of the best of Studs Terkel.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Highly Recommend This Book, September 3, 2003

By 

"[e-mail]" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq (Hardcover)

This is a fascinating book. Skip the intro, which is too long and reads like a college paper, and dive right into the action. It's uncomfortable, nerve-wracking reading- these reporters' stories take you right to the front lines amid the chaos and the noise. Michael Herr's Dispatches was a great book, but it offered only one perspective. This book presents dozens from all over the globe, both men and women, Arabic press and US Army videographers. Most importantly, each person speaks from the heart. (My favorite was Evan Wright, the Rolling Stone reporter. He is a funny and insightful guy who doesn't take himself too seriously.) When I first heard the media would be "embedded", I thought oh no, that means "co-opted", stuck in the rear under a watchful military eye. This book demonstrates that that was not the case. These reporters were given, and/or took, the freedom they needed to send very accurate reports of this war, direct from the battlefield. They took great risks to do it, and for that I am grateful to them.

22 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Why reporters are not soldiers..., November 24, 2003

By 

"mango911" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq (Hardcover)

This book contains dozens of 3 or 4 page vignettes from reporters (and some others, like an anti-war activist), who covered the Iraq war. Some of the reporters were embedded and others were independent. The main theme of most of the stories is how bad the conditions were and why the reporters were exhausted and just had to go home after their gruelling five weeks of covering the war. If anything, this book will make you marvel at the courage and fortitude of the military personnel, who endure these conditions, and worse, for months on end.

Some of the stories reflect admiration for the troops and an increased appreciation of the US military and the difficult conditions under which they work and fight. Some reflect a lack of preparedness and understanding by the reporters of what they were getting into; they are apparently suprised that war actually involves killing people, or being killed by them - and the fact that, unfortunately, sometimes innocent civilians die in the process.

This book is most useful in documenting the experience of the reporters during the war, but it sheds relativley little light on the war itself, nor does it coherently address the complex relationship of the reporter and the war environment. Most of the collected stories are "all about me."