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The Framing of Iraq War Reporting by Embedded and Unilateral Newspaper
Journalists



Susan Currie Sivek
Doctoral Student
University of Texas at Austin
School of Journalism
Phone (512) 253-0292 or (210) 367-2679
E-mail [log in to unmask]



Submission to the
Mass Communication and Society Division
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
2004 Conference




Abstract

This study analyzes the framing of stories by embedded and unilateral
newspaper reporters during the 2003 Iraq war. The frames used by embedded
journalists differed from the frames chosen by independent unilateral
reporters, regardless of other characteristics of their newspapers.
Embedded reporters tended to adopt a military-promoted "Liberation" frame
in their stories, while unilateral reporters were more likely to select an
"Invasion" or "Mixed" story frame. The normative value of the embedding
program is discussed.







The Framing of Iraq War Reporting by Embedded and Unilateral Newspaper
Journalists











Submission to the
Mass Communication and Society Division
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
2004 Conference





Abstract

This study analyzes the framing of stories by embedded and unilateral
newspaper reporters during the 2003 Iraq war. The frames used by embedded
journalists differed from the frames chosen by independent unilateral
reporters, regardless of other characteristics of their newspapers.
Embedded reporters tended to adopt a military-promoted "Liberation" frame
in their stories, while unilateral reporters were more likely to select an
"Invasion" or "Mixed" story frame. The normative value of the embedding
program is discussed.

 Introduction
        The relationship between the media and the U.S. military has always been
uneasy. In recent years, the U.S. military has established pool systems to
allow journalists access to the battlefield, yet these systems were
generally unsatisfactory to journalists in the amount and variety of access
received. After the 1991 Desert Storm pool system was widely denounced, the
George W. Bush administration introduced a program of embedding journalists
into military units.[1] These embedded journalists, or "embeds," would send
home stories from the front, from among the rank and file and from the
midst of the action. About 600 embeds came to Iraq from newspapers,
television networks, and other media outlets, including online
publications, worldwide (Mitchell, 2003).
        Embedded reporters, although given access to troops and the battlefield
greater than that of journalists in prior conflicts, still had to comply
with restrictions. For example, current, future, postponed, or canceled
operations could only be described in very general terms. Reporters could
not use their own vehicles, nor name soldiers or their hometowns without
the soldiers' consent. All interviews had to be on the record. Embeds
occasionally reported that they were denied transportation or information
necessary for reporting, and some commanders insisted on reviewing copy, a
violation of the embedding rules (Wilson, 2003). However, the military
rules specifically stated that the extensive ground rules for embeds were
"in no way intended to prevent release of derogatory, embarrassing,
negative, or uncomplimentary information" (quoted in Mitchell, 2003).
In the meantime, about 1,500 reporters in Iraq operated without these
restrictions, but without the protection or encouragement of the U.S. armed
forces. These reporters, called "unilaterals," worked independently or
sometimes with partners or teams, and traveled Iraq and neighboring
countries under their own power and on their own schedules.
Unilaterals faced hostile Iraqi troops and civilians, supply problems,
closed borders, and U.S. and British military reluctance to inform or
rescue non-embeds (e.g., Byrne, 2003; Donvan, 2003; Leiby, 2003; Workman,
2003). Each required around $16,000 to $35,000 worth of equipment to cover
safety and story transmission needs, making unilateral coverage frequently
too expensive for smaller media outlets; reporters from smaller newspapers,
for example, were often more likely to embed with troops (Cox, 2003).
Unilaterals also had difficulty obtaining information from military
officials because of their independent status. Jeffrey Goldberg, a
unilateral working for The New Yorker, stated that American troops would
not talk to him, but talked freely with the embedded reporter in their unit
(Shafer, 2003). Some unilaterals, faced with overwhelming difficulty in
traveling safely and accessing military sources, embedded themselves
unofficially with a military unit, maintaining their freedom of travel and
coverage, not subject to the embedding rules, but generally protected by
the troops (Donvan, 2003).

Framing War
This study seeks to evaluate the reporting produced by both embedded and
unilateral newspaper reporters in Iraq to determine whether the framing of
their stories differed in any way and, if they did, to suggest possible
rationales for those differences. Framing serves as a particularly useful
way to evaluate these stories, as it allows for the analysis of more than
simple story topic or use of sources; it incorporates many aspects of
stories and considers them as part of larger narratives or trends. Frames
have been defined as ways to limit the amount of information in a story and
to raise particular pieces of that information into prominence (Tuchman,
1978; Entman, 1993). The frame is both a way of organizing content and, for
journalists, a way of lending that information legitimacy in a professional
manner (Tuchman, 1978). In order to claim "facticity" for the story, the
journalist uses "professional storytelling devices" to communicate a series
of events (Tuchman, 1978, p. 100). These devices (e.g., the use of the
inverted pyramid story structure and the choice of sources) tend to enhance
one aspect of a story and diminish other aspects, increasing the
possibility that readers will remember the "salient" aspect (Entman, 1993).
The frame becomes visible in the syntactical, script, thematic, and
rhetorical structures of every story, which all reinforce that salient
information (Pan & Kosicki, 1993). These factors are, respectively, the
story's overall structure (e.g., inverted pyramid, etc.), the narrative
dominating the story, explorations of cause and effect in the story, and
stylistic choices of diction and imagery that shape the story's meaning.
The journalist, however, does not always consciously determine these
factors, nor do they always arise organically from the topic being covered.
Frames are shaped by years of journalistic tradition, which classifies
stories into particular frames and modes of writing. Additionally, issues
are framed by politicians, corporations, public relations agencies, and
other entities sometimes called "frame sponsors" (e.g., Hertog & McLeod,
2001) when they are presented to journalists. For example, the NRA and a
gun control advocacy group will employ very different frames in their
responses to congressional debates on handgun restrictions (Callaghan &
Schnell, 2001). Both groups want to ensure that their viewpoint is
reinforced and spread by the media covering the event. Another way of
influencing the framing of an issue is word choice. For example, German
(1995) described President George H. W. Bush's use of "directive" language,
including highly emotional language, to "awe and inspire" the nation to
support Desert Storm (reminiscent of the phrase "shock and awe" used in the
2003 war). When under pressure to produce stories on deadline, or when
without the resources for critical evaluation, journalists may propagate
such language and the frames they are presented.
George H. W. Bush and his advisors selected such language in order to
provide a persuasive case for their actions in Desert Storm. That language
was designed to convince Americans that Desert Storm was the right thing to
do, and that it would ultimately benefit the world, despite the casualties
on both side. By presenting his own frame of the issues surrounding the war
and by using very specific language, George H. W. Bush aimed to maintain a
public perception of the war that would promote social order and government
power. Politicians and the military see their own frames as the best way of
maintaining order and control, and it is these status quo frames which are
taught and reinforced in communities (Hertog & McLeod, 2001, p. 142). These
are frames which do not disrupt the normal functioning of communities, and
which encourage cohesion and suppress deviance. Hertog and McLeod (2001)
argue that community members absorb these frames after immersion in them
over time, and see the world through the paradigm of those frames. The
media, also immersed in that framing, thus tend to reinforce and promulgate
government policy through their reliance on official sources rather than
alternative sources (Altschull, 1995; Entman & Page, 1994; Sigal, 1973).
When composing stories, reporters who are immersed in journalistic
tradition and who require the professional legitimacy implied by the use of
official sources may find it difficult to see beyond these sources and the
frames suggested by those officials.
The framing of American war journalism has been studied extensively.
Hackett and Zhao (1994) present a detailed description of the "master
narrative" of America at war that likely permeates the military mindset and
the framing of war journalism. They present a myth of America as blessed by
God with special wealth and values, resulting in "not only a right but a
duty to take on godlike characteristics, of omniscience, omnipotence,
beneficence" (p. 534). Moreover, those characteristics endow the right to
the use of hegemonic military power as this specially empowered nation sees
fit (p. 534). Hackett and Zhao argue that the press coverage of Desert
Storm emphasized and excluded information carefully, framing stories in
specific ways to fit this myth of justified American might.
The mythic power of war in American popular culture is further described by
Hallin and Gitlin (1994), who argue that "The primary role of the media in
wartime in the Anglo-American world has long been to maintain the ties of
sentiment between the soldiers in the field and the home front" (p. 161).
American global superiority is affirmed through war and through popular
culture. Community is built through shared engagement in war, with events
such as rallies and consumer products such as yellow ribbons and T-shirts
exemplifying this engagement. For Hallin and Gitlin, television journalism
during Desert Storm especially confirmed this narrative of "American
prowess," as it focused on military technology and capability as well as
community events and debate about war (although never too much debate).
Griffin and Lee (1995), echoing this critique of television journalism,
found that pictures in newsmagazines during Desert Storm emphasized
American military capability and technology over pictures of actual
warfare; for every nine pictures of a piece of military hardware, there was
only one picture of real combat, thus dehumanizing the conflict and
eliminating readers' view of the human cost of war. In an analysis of
Desert Storm communication strategies, Cheney (1993) also noticed an
emphasis on military technology in reporting on that war. Cheney observed
other communication strategies used by the first Bush administration,
including the tendency to link support of the Desert Storm troops with
support of the war, to disconnect Vietnam and Desert Storm and show them to
be essentially different wars, and to suggest a larger, universal reason to
support the war as part of the implementation of a "New World Order" (pp.
67-69). All of these strategies appear to have been repeated in reporting
on the 2003 Iraq war, although in slightly different forms.
        Liebes (1992) studied the framing of Desert Storm as compared to coverage
of the Palestinian intifadeh, and found six primary framing strategies used
in coverage of wars in which a reporter's own country is at war. She says
that journalists in this situation "tend to excise the opposite side,
sanitize the suffering inflicted on it, attribute equal strength to both
sides, personalize 'our' side, demonize 'their' side, and decontextualize
[the other side's] aggressive actions" (p. 44). In short, these strategies
mean that "our" wars receive plentiful coverage that avoids describing the
other side's relative weakness, true nature, and actual level of
casualties. In the case of the 2003 Iraq war, the embeds' coverage may also
have been especially likely to follow these framing tendencies, due to
their proximity to and familiarity with the American troops. The resulting
identification with the troops may have led to a higher level of
representation of what Liebes calls "our side." This issue will be
discussed at greater length below.
        In conflicts since Desert Storm, the same pro-war, pro-military, American
policy-reinforcing framing has been visible. For example, some argue that
CNN's reporters in Kosovo internalized the frames put forth by NATO to
account for their activities there (Herman & Peterson, 2000). History was
also ignored or reframed to fit NATO's needs, and was presented by the
reporters as told to them by NATO (Hammond & Herman, 2000). After a
post-9/11 increase in patriotism, coverage of the war in Afghanistan has
also been consistently framed in the Bush administration's "war on
terrorism" terms, according to Nacos (2002). Regarding an unarmed but
important political conflict, Goss (2002) found little criticism of the
Iraqi sanctions in the New York Times over the course of two years and 650
articles, despite the international controversy over the issue; the paper
instead reinforced the U.S. government's official policy regarding the
sanctions through its choice of news narratives.
This study employs the systematic and empirical approach for frame analysis
suggested by Tankard (2001) and often called the "list of frames" method,
in which a list of possible frames is composed, with each frame defined by
"specific keyword, catchphrases, and images" (p. 101). For example, in
stories about abortion, the words used to refer to a fetus may indicate the
story's frame (Tankard, 2001, p. 102). By looking for these characteristic
features of particular frames, stories are coded as employing a certain
frame. The appearance of these features within Tankard's "framing
mechanisms," including headlines, leads, selection of sources and quotes,
graphics, and the concluding paragraphs of articles, is an additional clue
to the correct classification of stories within a frame on the list. As
Tankard notes, "the list of frames [approach focuses] more on how the issue
is defined by inclusion and exclusion of certain key terms" (p. 102).
Tankard argues that this list of frames approach and other systematic,
empirical approaches to frame analysis are advantageous in that their
reliability can be determined, the subjectivity of frame determination
(otherwise often by a single coder) can be eliminated, and the results can
be replicated (p. 104).

Framing and Embedded Journalists
The issue of frame and narrative choice intersects with concerns regarding
coverage of the Iraq war. Embedding allowed reporters immediate and
in-depth access to the battlefield, and provided readers a view of the war
from the ground. However, if an embedded reporter is completely immersed in
one perspective of a complex event such as the Iraq war – living with,
being defended by, and undoubtedly befriending individuals on one side –
does that reporter tend to frame his or her representations of those
individuals differently?
Embeds described their close proximity to troops as professionally risky in
this regard. The embeds relied on the troops' protection and supplies in an
intense situation, and yet, under traditional norms of "objective"
journalism, were supposed to try to maintain a distance that would allow
for skeptical scrutiny. The reporters themselves have admitted that they
sometimes slipped into sympathetic or fuzzy reporting in order to protect
soldiers that they knew and liked personally (e.g., Carr, 2003; Colon,
2003b; Dillow, 2003; Kurtz, 2003; "Embedded," 2003). The personal bonds
that communicated themselves in many of these reporters' stories likely
encouraged "the audience into an intimate relationship with the
troops…[nurturing] a sense of shared national purpose" (Kellner, 1992, p. 87).
That intimate relationship is evidenced in statements like that of Gordon
Dillow of the Orange County Register: "I fell in love with 'my' Marines"
(2003). Dillow openly acknowledged in his account of his embed experience
that he began "reporting the Marine grunt truth – which had also become my
truth" (Dillow, 2003). Washington Post reporters discussed their feelings:
"Without realizing it, you could get taken in by their [the military's]
narratives, to think that war wasn't messy" (Mary Beth Sheridan); "I
handled [a story] gingerly and didn't completely report what I saw"
(Lindsey Layton) ("Embedded," 2003).
Hedges (2003) describes this tendency to obscure or spin the facts as a
form of "self-annihilation" – a destruction of the embed's sense of
possessing a distinct self, separate from the mindset of the troops
surrounding them – brought on by the sense of comradeship in war. He argues
that reporters want to "do their bit" by "dissemination…of the myth used to
justify war and boost the morale of the soldiers and civilians," often
resorting to lies of omission as Layton describes (Hedges, 2003).
Furthermore, the military mindset in which they were immersed overrode
their normal skepticism, based on different values from the civilian world
(Carruthers, 2000, p. 158). While in the civilian world, deaths by grenade
and missile are anomalies, the military mindset changes these events into
necessary, mundane expenses of the war that serve a larger purpose. As
Sheridan notes, the narratives the reporters might have otherwise selected
for their stories may have been replaced by narratives that conformed to
this military viewpoint. For example, a reporter at home in the U.S. would
write the story of a killing in his or her hometown very differently from
the story of the killing of an enemy soldier during war. The narrative of
death is transformed by the context in which it occurs, and this is a
result of the reporter's own position on the side of (and in this case,
living with) the victorious troops. The transformation of standard
narratives into the military versions of the narrative may have been
reinforced by the embeds' deeper insertion into the American troops'
lifestyle and mindset.

Risks of Participant Observation
Anthropologists have long been aware of the potential consequences of
immersion in another culture with regard to the accuracy of observers'
data. Participant observers involved deeply in other cultures need to be
able to distance themselves from that culture, to "switch back and forth
between the insiders' perspective and an analytic framework" (Jorgensen,
1989, p. 65). Otherwise, their data may not adequately represent both
positive and negative attributes of those they study. They may "go native,"
becoming too embedded, as it were, in the culture under study. Robben
(1995), although writing for other ethnographers, offers a particularly
relevant analysis of the challenges of critically understanding war while
immersed in it. Robben studied the aftermath of the 1976-1983 "dirty war"
in Argentina, and found that the military officers he encountered presented
images of themselves contrary to what he had envisioned prior to his
arrival in the country: "The affability and chivalry of the
officers…affected my critical sensibility, and in the beginning led me
astray from my research focus….It was only after months of interviewing
that I succeeded in recognizing the prevalent defenses and strategies and
learned to distinguish seduction from good rapport" (1995, p. 83). Robben
found the officers personally interesting and friendly, appearances that
contradicted what he knew of their actions from their criminal trial
documents. It took time for him to be able to recognize the "frames" the
Argentine military officers presented.
Robben realized that this type of "seduction" is a risk for ethnographers
studying armed conflict because sources in these situations have "great
personal and political stakes in making the ethnographer adopt their
interpretations" (p. 84). Those interpretations could also be called the
frames with which the officers understood their motives and actions.
Additionally, when sources require observers to maintain secrecy regarding
the source's statements, the seduction can be intensified, as it deepens
the observer's "complicity" with the sources (Robben, 1995, p. 94). Robben
points finally to the need to understand the motivations for such seduction
(or for that framing) from the inside out, analyzing its origins as part of
an analysis of the larger situation (p. 99).
The embeds' situation in Iraq seems parallel to that of Robben in
Argentina. The reporters lived full-time and forged relationships with
military officers (who, in this case, also protected their lives, unlike
Robben). The military trained the embeds to behave appropriately in a war
zone and also gave them strict regulations regarding the types of
information that had to remain secret (adding to their sense of complicity
and feeling of belonging with the troops). The military personnel around
the embeds likely presented their own ideas about the motives for and the
correct course of the conflict. Moreover, given the short time span of the
war (about a month and a half), the embeds probably did not have the time
to develop sensitivity to the framing of the war as presented by coalition
military officials. The embedded journalists could be susceptible to the
same seduction Robben experienced, but without the time necessary to regain
a critical distance on the "defenses and strategies" they were presented by
the military.
McLaughlin (2002), writing before the 2003 Iraq war, argues that if a
journalist begins to identify with one side in a conflict, it becomes
difficult for him or her to separate emotion from the facts. When the facts
suddenly do not fit with the "moral framework" – or perhaps "the Marine
grunt truth" that Dillow describes – the facts tend to be suppressed and
"the reader…is the loser" (McLaughlin, 2002, p. 167). Studies of the
British reporting of the Falklands War, during which journalists also lived
with troops during the sea voyage to the Falklands, support journalists'
tendency to suppress facts when surrounded by the military paradigm. As a
result of their immersion with the military, Carruthers (2000) argues, "The
re-oriented journalists accepted matter-of-factly, as the reality of war,
acts which in civilian life they might have found unconscionable" (p. 158).
The confusion of the roles of participant and observer affected
journalists' beliefs regarding the conflict, even leading those who
believed in peacetime journalistic impartiality and detachment to adopt a
wartime "pro-military disposition" (Carruthers, 2000, p. 159). That
disposition undoubtedly affected not only the events these journalists
reported, but also the specific way in which they presented particular events.
Some embeds did submit stories that represented the U.S. military
negatively. Embeds occasionally corrected and refined official accounts of
events, even to the military's detriment. For example, embeds revealed that
a grenade attack on American soldiers early in the war was in fact carried
out by another soldier and that the first casualties of the war came from a
helicopter crash, not hostile fire. An embed divulged that an American
soldier killed a female Iraqi civilian who had been standing near Iraqi
soldiers, and then apologized to his commander by saying, "I'm sorry, but
the chick was in the way" (Garvin, 2003; Smith, 2003). All of these stories
came to light through embeds' reporting. But these stories may be unusual.
The key question, then, regarding the embedded journalists' reporting is
the extent to which their participation may have affected their actual
stories. As observers participating in everything but the use of weapons,
were the embeds seduced by the "Marine grunt truth"? Did they tend to
promulgate the military and Bush administration narrative of the war as the
salvation and liberation of the Iraqi people, or did they manage to
maintain the "analytical framework" (i.e., a degree of impartiality) that
Jorgensen describes? Did they avoid "adopting terminology carefully chosen
by military strategists to win hearts and minds" (Project for Excellence in
Journalism, 2003), such as the description of a war as "winning hearts"?
For comparison, this study will analyze the work of embedded and unilateral
reporters in Iraq. The unilateral reporters, traveling and working
independently, may have avoided the risks of immersion confronted by the
embeds, and so their stories may be framed differently from those of the
embeds.
To explore the differences between these two groups of journalists
reporting from the Iraq war, this study addressed the three research
questions below. To assess the value of the embedded journalist program as
a tool for conveying information from the battlefield to citizens, it is
necessary to ascertain whether or not journalists in the program provided
information that tended to coincide strongly with the military's and the
Bush administration's publicly stated goals, or if their work went beyond
official statements and viewpoints to provide citizens a variety of details
and perspectives with which to judge their government's actions. The
information provided by the media also shaped government policy for Iraq,
both via citizen response to the media's reporting and through action in
Washington. Additionally, the reporting of embedded journalists was
prominent in print and broadcast media, thanks to those journalists' access
to information and images that were unavailable to news consumers during
previous conflicts. Because their reporting was of high prominence and
interest during the war, it is especially important to analyze its content,
since their stories may have had a particularly forceful impact on readers
and viewers. This study looks at the work of newspaper reporters in order
to begin such an analysis.

Research Questions
R1:     How did newspaper reporters in Iraq frame their stories?
R2:     Did the use of particular frames differ based on reporters' status as
embedded or
unilateral?
R3:     Do other characteristics of the reporters or their newspapers correlate
with
the use of particular frames?

Methods
This study employs Tankard's (2001) list of frames approach to analyze the
framing of stories by embedded and unilateral newspaper reporters in Iraq.
The work of 57 reporters from a variety of English-language newspapers was
selected for analysis. Using a variety of sources, I identified embedded
and unilateral reporters from a range of newspapers across the U.S., as
well as those in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.[2] Reporters
were selected purposively, as opposed to creating a random sample, due to
my interest in the effects of their status as embedded (assigned to a
military unit on a permanent basis) or unilateral (traveling Iraq and the
surrounding countries independently). I selected reporters based on my
ability to verify that status, plus the availability of their stories in
the Lexis-Nexis database, their postings (in the case of the embeds) among
various military units and locations in Iraq, or (in the case of the
unilaterals) throughout Iraq and surrounding countries, and their
representation of a diverse group of newspapers as defined by the
newspapers' circulation, location, and owner (e.g., Hearst, Knight Ridder,
Scripps). I researched each of these aspects of the reporters, the location
of their assignments, and their newspapers in order to avoid creating a
concentration of reporters with similar characteristics so that no other
characteristic would be as likely to account for trends in the eventual
sample of stories collected.
 From Lexis-Nexis, I compiled all stories by these 62 reporters published
between March 20 and May 1, 2003, the period of "active combat" between the
expiration of the U.S. ultimatum for Iraq and President Bush's declaration
of the end of "major combat." This sample originally appeared to contain
nearly 2,000 stories; however, a few important alterations reduced this
number. First, I removed stories on topics other than the Iraq war and its
surrounding issues. For example, some of these reporters were assigned to
Afghanistan prior to the start of the Iraq war, and those stories are
included in this study. I also removed stories that listed a byline of more
than one author, as combined authorship made it difficult to isolate the
variable of embedded or unilateral status. After removing irrelevant and
multiple-bylined stories, as well as duplicates appearing in Lexis-Nexis,
the resulting sample numbered 1,120 stories. The final sample of stories
was composed 52.8% of embeds' stories and 47.2% of unilaterals' stories.
Although this sample represents a relatively diverse range of reporters and
newspapers, its nonrandom nature does mean that it is not generalizable to
all coverage of the Iraq war by embeds and unilaterals. I feel confident,
however, that the final sample includes stories from an adequate selection
of reporters in a variety of situations from a range of newspapers.[3]
I then coded these stories for basic data about the reporter and his or her
newspaper, as well as the topic of the story and the national origin of
individuals used as the story's primary sources. I also coded stories by
date and week of the war in order to analyze them for changes over the
course of the fighting. Through a pretest and refinements during coding,
eight topic categories were created:
•       Soldiers' Lives (daily existence on the battlefield; e.g., quality of
MREs, writing home)
•       Reporters' Lives (dangers and methods or other media involvement issues;
e.g., life at the Palestine Hotel, satellite phone transmissions)
•       Update on Movements (ongoing tracking of battalions/units, Iraqi POWs;
e.g., Battalion X moving ten miles closer to Baghdad, Company Y suffering
casualties in attack)
•       Iraqi-American Relations and Future of Iraq (reconstruction, humanitarian
efforts, new government; e.g., American soldiers meeting with local
officials, oilfield reconstruction)
•       Iraqi Daily Life (before and during war, including infrastructure, family
life, work, threats, torture, looting; e.g., families entering jails to
search for surviving relatives, stolen antiquities from museums)
•       Surrounding Countries and Kurds' Concerns (e.g., Jordan's tourism
problems, Kurds' feelings about Saddam Hussein)
•       Editorial or News Analysis (clear opinion presented)
•       Military Capability and Strategy (articles which talk primarily about
technology or strategy; e.g., description of "shock and awe" technique,
stories about "psyops," or psychological operations)

I then classified the stories into three major frames: Liberation,
Invasion, or Mixed. The three frames were developed from a pretest of a
random selection of five percent of the stories in the total sample. I will
describe these frames in greater detail in the Results section below, as
the frames found represent the response to Research Question 1. The
complete codebook is in Appendix A.
The journalist's selection of sources – those individuals quoted in the
story – is often used when determining story frames in analyses similar to
this study. For example, stories that quote only official military sources
might be coded one way, while stories that favor everyday citizens are
classified otherwise. However, for this study, I avoided considering
sources when coding for the frame. Because embedded reporters were confined
to their military units and under embedding rules could not leave the unit,
they were naturally unlikely to quote Iraqi civilians and instead much more
frequently quoted American military officials. Likewise, unilaterals had
less access to military sources and far greater access, for example, to
sources in countries surrounding Iraq. As a result, the primary sources
used by the reporters must out of necessity be less of a deciding factor in
the determination of frame in this study. I instead focused on vocabulary,
tone, imagery, and word choice in assigning each story a frame. I will
explain these aspects of the frame assignment in greater detail in the
Results section below.

Results
I will first discuss the characteristics of the final sample of stories
collected for this study. I will then describe the frames used by
journalists in these stories, and the differences between embedded and
unilateral reporters in their choice of frames. Finally, I will explore
possible other factors that might have influenced the framing of these stories.
The Sample of Stories
        Details on the means of composing the sample of 1,120 stories are provided
in the Methods section. Data on the variety of sources for the total
sample, available in Table B1 in Appendix A, demonstrate the mix of
newspaper stories from papers of different circulation levels, U.S.
regions, and international locations. Again, while this is not a random
sample, a diverse mix was targeted in order to provide the best possible
picture of the embeds' and unilaterals' reporting. Small to very large
newspapers were included, as were papers from inside and outside the U.S.,
and from across the U.S. Naturally, more stories were selected from U.S.
sources, since the majority of embedded reporters represented American
newspapers. However, stories from Canadian, British, and Australian
newspapers were incorporated for comparison.
        Over a quarter of the stories (descriptions and examples provided in
Methods section; data in Table B2) fell into the Update on Movements
category, meaning that many stories were relatively simple updates on the
actions of a particular component of the military force. Stories about
Iraqi civilians were also surprisingly frequent, as were stories about the
nature of the relations between Iraqis and Americans. However, coverage of
the coalition soldiers – such as profiles of an individual soldier or
stories of life in a military camp – was also very frequent, demonstrating
newspapers' priority of "supporting the troops" and localizing the war
coverage, often by highlighting a soldier from the newspaper's city or
nearest military base.
Research Question 1: How did newspaper reporters in Iraq frame their stories?
Three frames – Liberation, Invasion, and Mixed – were developed based on a
pretest of five percent of the stories in the entire sample, and the
inclusivity of these frames was supported as the entire sample was coded.
This method assumes that it is possible to characterize every story as
shaped by one of these frames. With regard to this sample, it did seem
possible to classify stories based on the assumptions underlying their
content and organization: whether the war was a justified liberation or an
unwanted invasion, or perhaps something in between (in which case the Mixed
frame applied). Even without considering sourcing, it was usually easy to
interpret which way reporters chose to tell the story of the war. I define
the Liberation, Invasion, and Mixed frames below, and offer examples and
explanation to clarify each. While the determination of the frame of a
story was necessarily based on the entire story, I have chosen selective
quotes to represent each frame and to demonstrate how I interpreted the
reporters' language, tone, and imagery.
About sixty-four percent of the stories in this sample were written in the
Liberation frame. (Complete counts and percentages for all three frames are
in Table B3.) Stories using the Liberation frame focused on the coalition
forces' power and benevolence toward Iraq. These stories described the war
as the coalition's battle for democracy in Iraq, brought about through
their vastly superior military strength and technology. Iraqi civilians
were portrayed as welcoming and as appreciating reconstruction efforts.
When concerns were raised about the rebuilding of Iraq after the war, they
were only mentioned as related to smaller aspects of the larger and more
important issue. For example, a story about "happy fire" in Baghdad
mentioned the need for the reinstatement of basic services in the city, but
addressed the matter from the angle of the residents' dangerous habit of
firing automatic weapons into the air when their lights would briefly come
back on. This angle both discounted the Iraqis' dire need for
reconstruction of their infrastructure and characterized the Iraqis poorly.
Iraqi soldiers were also narrowly portrayed in Liberation stories. Iraqi
soldiers appeared hapless and pathetic, and their internal motivation to
fight was questioned. The Iraqi soldiers were shown as certainly unable to
contend with U.S. troops: "Unfettered air strikes…battered overwhelmed
Iraqi troops…" (Myers, 2003a). Going to war was simply an exercise for
coalition troops who faced no real threats and who would find the war to be
mere practice: "The Iraq deployment would be similar in nature [to a
previous mission in Somalia, also requested by the U.S.] and could provide
valuable experience for the soldiers" (McPhedran, 2003, writing about a
request for more Australian soldiers to come to Iraq). Finally, sacrifices
by coalition troops were represented as far greater than those of the Iraqi
fighters, even when those sacrifices seemed wildly out of proportion: "Army
Spc. Dennis Baker of Holland is paying a high price for his college
education" (Zremski, 2003). While service in Iraq might be the price an
American soldier paid for an education, Iraqi civilians were paying for the
war with their lives and would likely possess a different view of the
opportunities offered to Baker. Overall, in the Liberation frame Iraqi
troops are represented as minor inconveniences for coalition troops, who
view them only as obstacles on the way to a fully paid college education or
as a source of military field practice.
Liberation stories tended to underplay whatever Iraqi resistance might have
been present and instead emphasized the might of American forces and the
power of U.S. military technology. The power of that technology was taken
to dramatic heights by some reporters: "American air power, as the 21st
century begins, is a terrible swift sword that strikes with a suddenness, a
devastation and a precision, in most cases, that moves even agnostics to
reach for words associated with the power of gods" (Burns, 2003). Here,
although the words "terrible" and "devastation" suggest the destructive
power of that strength, the link to spiritual imagery overpowers the
suggestion of the negativity of war. Burns' word choice also invokes Bush's
quasi-religious imagery of "good and evil." In Liberation stories, military
technology was deified, and the human costs that resulted from that
technology were rarely mentioned.
Structural characteristics of Liberation stories also were factors.
Attention to these structural characteristics, called framing mechanisms by
Tankard (2001), often revealed the reporter's choice of frame for a story.
Liberation stories sometimes had headlines like "Britain rules the waves
with goodwill" (Butcher, 2003b), which linked the imperialist message of
the song "Rule Britannia" with an assumed positive impact of that
imperialism. The headlines tended to set the tone of the stories, and while
reporters did not write these headlines, the headlines typically
characterized the story's content well. Liberation stories also frequently
ended with quotes from sources who put a positive spin on any negative
events described, usually calling upon "freedom," "liberation," and/or
"democracy" to do so. For example, Christenson (2003) ended a story about
the taking of Iraqi prisoners of war with "Lt. Steven Kane, 24, of Ocala,
Fla., said he hasn't seen a belligerent prisoner yet. 'Most of them are
glad to be here,' he said." The majority of the story discussed the poor
living conditions of the rank-and-file Iraqi soldiers, as compared to the
more luxurious lives of officers. Yet although the prisoners' camps might
have been an improvement in quality of life in some ways – for example,
easily available food and greater security – they remained prisons, which
typically are not places people want to be. By ending his story with this
quote, Christenson manages to avoid confronting the issue of disparities in
quality of life among different classes of Iraqi citizens, and instead
again paints the coalition soldiers as liberators – even as they take
prisoners. Quotes like this one often felt like last-moment efforts at
creating "balance" within the story, but effectively minimized the negative
content of the story, thus enhancing the Liberation frame.
In contrast, Invasion-framed stories portrayed the coalition not as
liberators but as invaders and conquerors. Sixteen percent of the stories
in this sample were written in this frame. Coalition soldiers were less
idealized. Layton (2003) describes a group of pilots on the aircraft
carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln watching video of their raids and
"delighting" in the explosions while ignoring video on CNN of "bloody,
bandaged Iraqi men lying on beds, casualties of U.S. assaults. The pilots
never glanced at that screen." Soldiers in these stories were shown as
sometimes "off-message": "the bombing exposed a seething anger among
soldiers that seemed to strain efforts to portray the war as one against
the Hussein government, not the Iraqi people" (Myers, 2003b). After the
first suicide attack on coalition troops in Iraq, some commanders made
blunt statements about the way they would respond to future incidents at
roadblocks: "They have five seconds to turn around and get out of here. If
they're there in five seconds, they're dead," said one commander (Myers,
2003b). Such blunt language certainly contrasted to the softer language
connected with "winning hearts and minds" that was frequently quoted in
Liberation-framed stories, and was probably not the type of language that
military public relations officials would have preferred soldiers use
around reporters.
Invasion stories also questioned the motives for sending these troops to
Iraq. They hinted at and sometimes strongly stated questions about the
legality of and motivations for the war: "…questions about where the
criminality lies become blurred" (Mcgeough, 2003). MacFarquhar (2003)
characterized the Americans as
an invading army of Democracy Delivery Men pulling up to the curb with
piping hot liberty, democracy, openness, free speech and freedom to
travel…But of course they pulled up in a tank and are Westerners, the same
people who promised all last century that the Arab world would be able to
throw off the yoke of colonialism yet never let them.

The nature of coalition troops' personal and national motivations was
portrayed with greater nuance and analysis – typically negative – than in
Liberation stories, which accepted the motivations for the war as pure and
driven by selfless urges to rescue the Iraqi people from dictatorship and
provide them with the panacea of democracy.
Invasion stories also mentioned Iraqi casualties with greater detail and
described Iraqi dissatisfaction with coalition efforts: "None of the staff
at the hospital wanted to talk about Saddam Hussein…At the moment it seems
as if scepticism [sic] of American motives outweighs hatred of Saddam's
regime" (Butcher, 2003a). Another reporter noted that Iraqis "now feel
intense anger against the United States for invading their country, for
bombing its cities, and for the hundreds of dead and injured that have
resulted" (Collier, 2003). Stories like these present a very different
image of Iraqis from those shown in the Liberation stories, who only
cheered the American presence in their country and supported their efforts.
Additionally, Invasion stories may express doubt about the coalition's
capability to reconstruct Iraq and the conditions under which a new
democracy must be created. Fisher (2003) of the New York Times questioned
Iraqis' desire for the "liberation" offered by the Americans, and their
need for basic supplies and assistance, not war: "In perhaps a fitting
metaphor for much of Iraq…the doors of two outdoor aviaries holding doves
and parakeets were wide open. The birds could have flown from their cages,
but they had not. And they had nothing to eat." To Fisher, although the
Americans had "freed" the Iraqis, they were unable to enjoy that freedom
because of the violent method used to grant it. Invasion-framed stories
also showed Iraqis as possessing greater individual agency, rather than
acting solely at the behest of an omnipotent dictator. Meek (2003b) noted
that "Hopes of a joyful liberation of a grateful Iraq…are evaporating
fast…as a sense of bitterness, germinated from blood spilled and
humiliations endured, begins to grow in the hearts of invaded and invader
alike." The Iraqis as Meek portrays them had developed their own concept of
what was happening to their country, rather than submitting easily to the
"battle for their hearts and minds."
Invasion-framed stories were also more likely to mention the problems
caused for neighboring countries and the world by the war, although not
necessarily. By drawing readers' attention to the larger consequences of
the war beyond Iraq's borders, reporters choosing this frame pointed out
other drawbacks of the coalition action, which "…further [hurt] a country
that has long suffered from being between 'Iraq and a hard place,'" as
Martin (2003) wrote about Jordan. American news tends to focus on the
issues and events with consequences for America, yet in order to determine
whether or not to support the American government's actions, Americans
should know how those actions affect other nations and the perception of
America around the world. By presenting negative views of the war from an
international perspective through the Invasion frame, reporters broadened
the range of opinions about the war that were available to readers and thus
increased the public's ability to evaluate the war.
Some stories – about twenty percent of this sample – displayed
characteristics of both the Liberation and Invasion frames. Discordant
comments from sources and reporters appeared occasionally in what otherwise
seemed to be Liberation- or Invasion-framed stories. A story that repeated
the coalition's arguments for war, for example, might have included a
particularly strong quote from an Iraqi civilian that contradicted those
arguments, even as the remainder of the story seemed to support the
coalition view of the war. Additionally, stories sometimes presented
Invasion and Liberation ideas at once: "As the Marines go about their
efforts here, they have been given a new mission: acting as an occupational
force, as well as a liberating one" (Harris, 2003). Harris seems to hint at
a contradiction in these terms, but also simultaneously accepts and repeats
the coalition's term "liberation." In another example, Israelsen (2003)
raises the rarely-mentioned topic of Iraq's oil, but immediately counters
those doubts about the coalition rationale by restating coalition policy:
"While many critics suspect oil to be a primary motivation in the U.S.-led
war against Iraq, officials here say they are securing the fields to
prevent environmental catastrophe and to keep them intact for the benefit
of the Iraqi people."
Finally, a story by Meek (2003a) provides perhaps the best example of the
Mixed-frame story: "As the passengers spotted European faces, one boy
grinned and put his thumb up. The other nervously waved a white flag. The
mixed messages defined the moment: Thank you. We love you. Please don't
kill us." Meek here explicitly acknowledges the tension between liberation
and invasion. While living with that tension, Iraqis and the reporters
covering them were often unsure about how exactly to approach each other
and the conflict in which they were all involved. In cases like these,
stories were classified as Mixed, and 20.3% of the story sample fell into
this category.
Research Question 2: Did the use of particular frames differ based on
reporters' status as embedded or unilateral?
        The results of this study suggest that embedded and unilateral reporters
did frame their stories differently. Table B4 describes the use of the
Liberation, Invasion, and Mixed frames by these reporters. Embedded
reporters chose the Liberation frame for 80.9% of their stories, the
Invasion frame for 5.1%, and Mixed frame for 14%. Unilateral reporters, on
the other hand, chose Liberation for 44.6% of their stories, Invasion frame
for 28.2%, and Mixed frame for 27.2%.
Embedded reporters were clearly much more likely to utilize the Liberation
frame than were unilateral reporters, and much less likely to choose to use
the Invasion frame. Unilateral reporters, on the other hand, while they did
still write Liberation-framed stories, were more likely to choose the
Invasion or Mixed frames for their stories. The embeds' tendency to select
the Liberation frame for their stories may be attributable to the effects
of "going native" with coalition troops, as discussed above. Their
immersion in the military perspective on events may have caused them to
portray those events in their stories from only that perspective. As Robben
described, they may not have had the time to learn to distinguish military
spin on information they were given, and thus repeated that spin when
reporting and gave the Liberation frame even greater momentum. Unilateral
reporters' ability to travel and draw upon sources around Iraq and in
neighboring countries may have helped them avoid these effects. Their
greater level of self-sufficiency and need to rely upon only themselves for
self-defense and subsistence may have allowed them to retain an "analytical
framework" when writing about the U.S. motivations for and actions at war.
Even when presented similar topics to write about, embedded and unilateral
journalists chose different frames with which to approach those
topics.  The complete breakdown of embedded and unilateral reporters with
story topics and frames is available in Table B5. Here, I will discuss some
of the more notable differences between the two types of reporters with
regard to topic and frame selection.
Of the stories written by embeds, one third were Liberation-framed updates
on troop movements; the next largest category of embeds' Liberation-framed
work was Soldiers' Lives, composing 27.9% of these stories. Stories about
soldiers were almost always framed as Liberation; the soldiers typically
presented their reasons for being in Iraq as positive ones related to the
goals of liberation and democracy. Additionally, embeds reported 87.7% of
all the stories in this sample about the soldiers, and they may have felt
hesitant to report anything negative about the troops due to their
proximity to and immersion with the troops. The positive portrayal of the
troops may have thus been intensified; negative comments by or about
soldiers were reported only rarely. Embeds most frequently applied the
Invasion or Mixed frames to the update on movements story, and the frame
was often visible in the prominence and style of mentions of Iraqi
casualties. Embeds also occasionally used the Invasion frame when
discussing Iraqi-American relations and Iraqi daily life, although these
stories accounted for only 2.5% of their total output in this sample,
likely due to their lack of access to Iraqi civilians.
Unilateral reporters, on the other hand, used the Liberation frame most
often when addressing updates on movements, Iraqi daily life, and
Iraqi-American relations. In stories on the latter two topics, however,
unilaterals frequently used the Invasion and Mixed frames to a degree that
far outweighed their application of the Liberation frame. Additionally,
almost half (47.7%) of the unilaterals' uses of the Invasion frame were for
stories on Iraqi daily life, demonstrating the unilaterals' ability to
circulate among civilians freely and thus gain a wider range of opinions on
the events of the war.
Finally, the Surrounding Countries/Kurds topic category, which was almost
unaddressed by embeds due to the limitations on their travel, seems at
first contradictory to the general characteristics of the unilaterals'
reporting. Among the topics, stories on the Surrounding Countries/Kurds
were most frequently written by unilateral reporters; they contributed
about 92% of these stories. However, 38.5% of the stories they wrote
employed the Liberation frame. It would seem that stories largely written
by unilaterals should primarily take on the Invasion or Mixed frames, just
as the Soldiers' Lives stories – mostly written by embeds – were mostly in
the Liberation frame. However, the nature of the stories covered in this
category explains this difference. Many of these stories were about the
Kurds, who more uniformly viewed the conflict as a pathway to freedom from
Saddam Hussein and his cruelty toward their people. The unilaterals, some
of whom were assigned to cover only the Kurds during the war, may have
experienced the same "going native" effects as the embeds with the troops.
The tendency toward the Liberation and Mixed frames, then, may in this case
represent a parallel for the unilaterals and the Kurds of the relationship
between the embeds and the troops.
Although sourcing is often considered an aspect of framing, it could not be
considered as such in the coding of stories for this study, given the
differing levels of access to a variety of sources between embeds and
unilaterals. However, the sources used for stories did correlate with
reporters' frame selection, as shown in Table B6. Most notably, 69.7% of
Liberation-framed stories relied primarily on American sources; in
contrast, 84.4% of Invasion-framed stories relied primarily on Iraqis or
other Middle Easterners as sources. Only 15.1% of Liberation-framed stories
included Iraqis as their main sources. From these results, it seems
apparent that reporters who went beyond American sources and contacted
Iraqis or other sources more frequently selected the Invasion or Mixed
frame for their work, as opposed to the Liberation frame. However, these
figures may be skewed due to the presence of embedded reporters' stories in
this sample; they often had access only to American sources, and it has
already been shown that their work tended to be more frequently
Liberation-framed regardless of sourcing.
Research Question 3: Do other characteristics of the reporters or their
newspapers correlate with the use of particular frames?
        Embedded or unilateral status aside, there were some other characteristics
of the reporters and their newspapers that appeared to correlate with the
choice of these three frames. The first of these was circulation,
particularly with regard to small newspapers, as seen in Table B7.
Reporters from smaller newspapers (those with a circulation of less than
400,000) were more likely, based on this sample, to file stories on
Soldiers' Lives; 71.2% of the stories about soldiers in this sample were
published in these small newspapers. As previously mentioned, stories about
soldiers were almost all (87.7%) addressed through the Liberation frame.
Possibly as a result of this tendency to focus on the soldiers, 72.5% of
the stories in this sample from small newspapers were Liberation-framed.
Interestingly, while stories from medium-sized papers were more distributed
across the frames, stories from large papers tended to be either Liberation
or Mixed. This trend may represent the influence of market forces on large
newspapers, which could be reluctant to use stories that question
government policy.
        Stories from non-American newspapers were more likely to use the Invasion
and Mixed frames. In American papers, 31.8% of stories in this sample were
Invasion- or Mixed-framed; 49.5% of the stories from non-American papers
fell into those two categories (complete data provided in Table B8). The
stories in this sample from papers in Canada, Britain, and Australia were,
as one might expect, more likely to question U.S. policy and actions, and
so employed the Invasion and Mixed frames to do so. American reporters,
even unilaterals, tended to express support for their government, while
others offered stories that allowed for doubt and concern.
        While other variables – reporter gender, American newspapers' region, and
story length – were included in the coding of these stories, none of these
presented notable correlations with the framing of the stories in this sample.

Discussion
        This study argues that one of the primary factors that shaped reporters'
stories in Iraq was their status as an embedded or unilateral reporter. The
data on this sample of stories consistently indicate that embedded
journalists tended to utilize the Liberation frame posited by their
military companions, likely due to the "going native" (or, as Robben puts
it, "seduction") effect of their position in the war. Unilateral reporters,
on the other hand, were more likely to reject that frame and use an
Invasion or Mixed frame when writing about the war. Because other factors
(newspaper circulation, U.S. region, story length, etc.) analyzed in this
study did not seem to correlate with frame choices, other than
American/non-American newspapers, the variable of the reporter's status as
embedded or unilateral is the remaining explanatory factor included in this
study.
There may be an additional factor that shaped the frames used by embedded
and unilateral journalists in Iraq. Some media critics have pointed out
that the reporters who went to Iraq as embeds were less experienced war
correspondents, and many had never before reported from a war zone. Some
more experienced war journalists refused to embed with the military, "too
arrogant…too good to embed," not wanting to comply with restrictions on
their movements and reporting (Di Giovanni, 2003). There was, then, a
system of self-selection determining who went to Iraq under what
conditions. War correspondents work within a unique culture, one that
"breeds loner, rugged individualists with a distaste for authority and a
high tolerance for risks" (Trombly, 2003). Immersed in this "self-promoted"
identity, war correspondents are proud to be separated from "plain"
correspondents (Pedelty, 1995, p. 30). The war correspondents enforced this
separation by going to Iraq as unilaterals rather than embeds, allowing the
less experienced, "plain" journalists to embed instead. This lack of
experience among embeds may have impacted their reporting in that they did
not have experience in maintaining a critical distance from the military's
policies and "mindset." More experienced war correspondents might have been
better able to resist and analyze the military's frames of the war.
A counter-argument can be mounted as to the effects of the unilaterals'
greater experience in war reporting. Pedelty's ethnography of war
correspondents showed that experienced and burned-out war reporters may
exhibit "inertia" in their reporting, relying on tired story frames to
merely accomplish "adequacy" for their news agencies (2003, p. 143). Others
may be conscious that their sources are trying to manipulate them, spinning
a version of events for the journalist to reproduce, but may choose not to
seek out the truth behind the spin due to that feeling of inertia
(McLaughlin, 2002). Unlike Robben, they do not feel a need to analyze the
source of the "seduction" which overpowers them; instead, they accept it
and permit it to transfer into their reporting. Pedelty and McLaughlin's
arguments, however, would seem to suggest that experienced war
correspondents working as unilaterals would not necessarily produce a
higher level of critical reporting while mired in this "inertia." If the
unilateral reporters were in fact the more experienced group of reporters,
they should have produced more Liberation-framed stories, according to this
line of argument; however, the opposite was true, and they wrote more
Invasion- and Mixed-framed stories. It is difficult to explore the effects
of the reporters' level of war correspondent experience with regard to this
study, as it was not analyzed; however, it may be a topic for consideration
in future studies.
The contrast between the reporting of embedded and unilateral journalists
does not end with the Iraq war, or even with the prospect of the repetition
of the program in future military conflicts.[4] Programs for embedding
journalists in other settings have already been proposed and implemented
elsewhere. Colon (2003a) suggests literally "embedding journalists
everywhere," from corporations to retirement communities to hospitals, in
order to diversify and enrich news coverage. He argues that embedding
everywhere will allow journalists to create stories "in which the subjects
would recognize themselves and the situations depicted" and encourage
reporters to "seek out people who might not receive coverage" (Colon, 2003a).
The Miami Herald and eleven other news organizations embedded reporters
with police to cover protests at the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit
in November 2003 (Alvarado, 2003). Four Herald reporters were embedded with
police, and twelve reported from the street. "Our embedding program was a
success," said Lieutenant Bill Schwartz, the Miami police spokesman. "It
gave the media the perspective from behind police lines" (quoted in
Alvarado, 2003). However, as this study shows, embedded reporters may
confuse coverage of the people and events involved with coverage of those
people's perspective on the event. It seems clear that journalists involved
in any type of embedding program, as well as their editors, need to be
especially conscious of the framing of their reporting, and ensure that it
represents more than simply the perspective of those in positions of power
that surround the reporter. The distinctive situation of embedded war
correspondents, plunged into a situation dangerous both to the quality of
their reporting and their lives, deserves special attention and even unique
training so that these journalists can continue to report from a critical
standpoint and utilize a variety of frames in their work.
        That attention is especially required given evidence of framing effects
found in some studies. The embeds' stories tended to be framed in what has
been called an "episodic" manner – focusing on concrete events or
individuals – rather than a "thematic" approach, which considers larger
contextual issues surrounding events (Iyengar, 1991). Iyengar's use of the
term "framing" differs here in that it refers solely to one aspect of the
arrangement of news stories – their level of concreteness (episodic) or
abstraction (thematic) as presented to the audience. Although episodic and
thematic frames were not systematically analyzed for this sample, it seems
apparent that embedded journalists, by the nature of their assignment to a
military unit, are confined to reporting on only those events and people
with which they come into contact while immersed in the military context.
To fulfill their assignment and utilize the access granted to them, they
must report on the distinct events that happen (episodes) within that
narrow context during their time as embeds, not on the bigger concerns
shaping those events. For this reason, the embeds' work was sometimes
called "soda straw" journalism; it provided images of the war as if viewed
through a straw (Smith, 2003).
Iyengar (1991) argues, based on experimental data gathered from viewers of
network news coverage, that this type of episodic framing tends to divert
audiences' attention from issues of responsibility for events, and
preserves officials' and incumbents' images because their roles in the
creation of the conflict at issue are never discussed (p. 137). In the case
of the Iraq war, Iyengar's conclusion suggests that the embed program and
the journalism produced through it might have diverted questions of
responsibility for the war's events away from American political figures
and protected their images. These frames may be altered at the individual
level based on his or her preexisting beliefs and perception of relevance
of the issue (Scheufele, 1999, p. 117), and the full effects of frames are
not really known at this point.
However, if one accepts Iyengar's argument, the combination of his study
and this one suggests the need for the combination of embedded reporting
with thematic reporting, so that context can be provided for the episodes
reported by embeds. Without such context, the public may not acknowledge
larger questions of accountability and greater trends and issues
surrounding the events of war or police action. More research on this
aspect of framing effects may lend credence to the need for thematic
reporting to supplement embeds' episodic framing. Television networks
admitted to their inability to keep up with the flow of images onto the
air, produced by their many reporters in the field in Iraq: "The 'embed
imagery' is coming back so fast, it outpaces our ability to contextualize
it," said Paul Slavin, executive producer of ABC's World News Tonight
(quoted in Hiltbrand & Shister, 2003).
However, a study of the newspapers produced during the Iraq war might show
that embeds' work was adequately contextualized by supplementation in the
newspaper with thematic stories. Did newspaper editors, with more time to
consider and react than the television producers, put the embeds' work into
context with other articles which described the larger issues surrounding
these smaller episodes? An analysis of complete issues of newspapers with
stories by embedded reporters in Iraq would be required to answer this
question. This might be an area for future research on this issue, along
with studies to determine the effects of contextualized and
non-contextualized episodic-framed stories on readers. At least one study
(Philo, 2002) has shown that stories which provide higher levels of
explanation and context for the events described can "radically alter both
attitudes and the level of audience interest" (p. 173). The keys, Philo
found, were for journalists to "explain the events they are reporting, to
say why they matter and how they relate to the audience" (p. 186). If
audience interest increases when news stories include these elements, it
seems that an increase in thematic framing might in fact increase
readership or viewership for this type of journalism, an increase that
would no doubt be welcome among market-driven news organizations.
Beyond the professional considerations faced by journalists at war, there
are consequences of embedding programs for the public at large. The results
of this study should demonstrate to consumers of journalism that they
cannot count on journalists to consistently provide a range of perspectives
and viewpoints in their reporting. More importantly, however, is the
ability, made visible by this study and others, of those in power to
promulgate their frames of events and issues through the media. The
military and other powerful institutions are aware of the potential of the
media to serve as a watchdog or critic; however, the institutions choose to
view the media instead as a tool for communicating their own frames and goals.
Major General James Thurman, chief operations officer for the land war
command, described the media coverage of the collapse of the Saddam Hussein
statue in Baghdad as one of the biggest successes of the embedding program.
As quoted by Reuters, Thurman said, "I felt chills in my body…The signal
that sent, it's powerful…We [the media and the military] did that as a
team" (Morgan, 2003). Thurman added, "As a war fighter, I am going to
leverage information. I'd be foolish not to…The power of information – it
is phenomenal." Thurman's view of the military and the media as "teammates"
in spreading pro-military information, rather than the media as a source of
critique, is shared by U.S. Army Brigadier General Vincent Brooks of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. Brooks told Reuters, "We've turned the media into a
mechanism for communicating information from the action to the
consumer…What we don't engage in is deception or manipulation" (Morgan,
2003). Yet in Brooks' statement is an implicit recognition that
manipulation has taken place: the media have been "turned into" something
other than what they were or should be. The media have become a mere
pipeline of information for the military: the "stenography for the
Pentagon" that many feared (Ehrlich, 2003). Brooks views this transmission
as a straight line, with no interpretation or disruption on the part of the
media.
Some journalists may even agree with this definition of their role. Judith
Miller, a New York Times reporter accused of parroting the military's
stance on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, told a
National Public Radio interviewer that her job was
not to collect information and analyze it independently as an intelligence
agency; my job was to tell readers of the New York Times as best I could
figure out, what people inside the governments who had very high security
clearances, who were not supposed to talk to me, were saying to one another
about what they thought Iraq had and did not have in the area of weapons of
mass destruction (quoted in Shafer, 2004).

In short, she did not think that her role was to engage in critical thought
regarding the information she gathered; she was merely supposed to transmit
it, like a compliant cog in Brooks' mechanism for communication. This job
description does not mesh with the traditional position of an investigative
reporter. While reporters do not have the resources of a huge intelligence
agency, they are expected to use their own intelligence and interpretive
skill to analyze information for their audiences and provide perspective
and context for that information. Many journalists do this successfully;
some do not, and Miller appears to belong to the latter group. Interviews
with military officials and journalists like these, combined with the
results of this study, provide additional support for the need for
vigilance among those creating and reading news stories about institutions
of power, particularly those produced via any type of embedding program.
 The Framing of Iraq War Reporting by Embedded and Unilateral Newspaper
Journalists

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 The Framing of Iraq War Reporting by Embedded and Unilateral Newspaper
Journalists


Appendix A
Codebook
V1
Article Date
V2
Reporter
01
Allard, Tom
M
Sydney Morning Herald/The Age
222000
AUS
Qatar
02
Allison, Wes
M
St. Petersburg Times
400000
S
101st Airborne
04
Baker, Peter
M
Washington Post
796367
NE
1st Marine Division
05
Birch, Douglas
M
Baltimore Sun
430000
NE
Turkey - Unilateral
06
Bombardieri, Marcella
F
Boston Globe
474845
NE
Kuwait - Unilateral
08
Brennan, Charlie
M
Rocky Mountain News
315412
W
V Corps - Embed
10
Bruni, Frank
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
Turkey - Unilateral
11
Burke, Jason
M
Observer
462082
UK
Northern Iraq - Unilateral
12
Burns, John F.
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
Baghdad - Unilateral
13
Butcher, Tim
M
Daily Telegraph (UK)
898681
UK
UK/US Forces
15
Christenson, Sig
M
San Antonio Express-News
365309
S
3rd Infantry
16
Clemetson, Lynette
F
New York Times
1100000
NE
USS Abraham Lincoln
17
Collier, Robert
M
San Francisco Chronicle
553703
W
Baghdad - Unilateral
20
Diaz, Kevin
M
Minneapolis Star Tribune
669358
MW
Qatar
21
DiManno, Rosie
F
Toronto Star
440654
CA
Jordan - Unilateral
22
Dodd, Fred
M
South Bend Tribune (IN)
100778
MW
Engineer Company B
23
Finley, Bruce
M
Denver Post
355000
W
Kuwait - Embed
24
Finn, Peter
M
Washington Post
796367
NE
UK/US Forces
25
Fisher, Ian
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
Jordan - Unilateral
26
Fisher, Matthew
M
National Post
273000
CA
3rd Light Armored Recon
28
Florio, Gwen
F
Denver Post
355000
W
Jordan - Unilateral
29
Franchetti, Mark
M
Times of London
594353
UK
2nd Marine Exp. Brigade
30
Fray, Peter
M
Sydney Morning Herald/The Age
222000
AUS
Turkey - Unilateral
31
Ganey, Terry
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
290000
MW
4th Infantry
32
Glasser, Susan
F
Washington Post
796367
NE
Kuwait - Unilateral
33
Glick, Caroline B.
F
Jerusalem Post
60000
ME
3rd Infantry
34
Harris, Ron
M
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
290000
MW
1st Marine Division
35
Hedges, Michael
M
Houston Chronicle
739389
S
4th Infantry
37
Israelsen, Brent
M
Salt Lake Tribune
232585
W
Kuwait - Unilateral
38
Kaplow, Larry
M
Palm Beach Post
222833
S
Baghdad - Unilateral
39
Kelley, Jack
M
USA Today
2200000
US
Kuwait - Unilateral
40
Kershaw, Sarah
F
New York Times
1100000
NE
Qatar
41
Kifner, John
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
1st Marine Division
43
Komarow, Steve
M
USA Today
2200000
US
1st Marine Division
44
Kristof, Nicholas D.
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
Southern Iraq - Unilateral
45
Lamb, Christina
F
Times of London
594353
UK
Southern Iraq - Unilateral
46
Layton, Lyndsey
F
Washington Post
796367
NE
USS Abraham Lincoln
47
LeDuff, Charlie
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
Northern Iraq - Unilateral
48
Lyke, M. L.
F
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
474748
NW
USS Abraham Lincoln
49
MacFarquhar, Neil
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
Syria - Unilateral
51
Martin, Susan Taylor
F
St. Petersburg Times
400000
S
Turkey - Unilateral
52
Martz, Ron
M
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
658581
S
3rd Infantry
53
McEnroe, Paul
M
Minneapolis Star Tribune
669358
MW
Northern Iraq - Unilateral
54
McGeough, Paul
M
Sydney Morning Herald/The Age
222000
AUS
Baghdad - Unilateral
55
McPhedran, Ian
M
Herald Sun
552000
AUS
Baghdad - Unilateral
56
Meek, James
M
Guardian
369482
UK
1st Marine Division
58
Miller, Judith
F
New York Times
1100000
NE
Kuwait - Embed
62
Myers, Steven Lee
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
3rd Infantry
64
Nolte, Carl
M
San Francisco Chronicle
553703
W
3rd Infantry
65
Oliver, Sarah
F
Mail on Sunday
2348723
UK
UK/US; 1st Royal Irish
66
Pan, Philip P.
M
Washington Post
796367
NE
Turkey - Unilateral
67
Parry, Richard Lloyd
M
Times of London
594353
UK
Southern Iraq - Unilateral
68
Pendygraft, John
M
St. Petersburg Times
400000
S
UK/US Forces
69
Peterson, Scott
M
Christian Science Monitor
65277
US
Baghdad - Unilateral
70
Potter, Mitch
M
Toronto Star
440654
CA
Syria - Unilateral
71
Richburg, Keith
M
Washington Post
796367
NE
Southern Iraq - Unilateral
72
Sennott, Charles
M
Boston Globe
474845
NE
Northern Iraq - Unilateral
73
Shadid, Anthony
M
Washington Post
796367
NE
Baghdad - Unilateral
74
Sheridan, Mary Beth
F
Washington Post
796367
NE
V Corps - Embed
75
Skelton, Russell
M
Sydney Morning Herald/The Age
222000
AUS
Northern Iraq - Unilateral
76
Skiba, Katherine
F
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
245000
MW
101st Airborne
77
Sleeth, Peter
M
Oregonian
422130
NW
82nd Airborne
78
Sprengelmeyer, M. E.
M
Rocky Mountain News
315412
W
101st Airborne
79
Toosi, Nahal
M
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
245000
MW
1st Marine Division
80
Tyson, Ann Scott
F
Christian Science Monitor
65277
US
3rd Infantry
81
Varney, James
M
New Orleans Times-Picayune
287001
S
Kuwait - Embed
82
Verma, Sonia
F
Toronto Star
440654
CA
Turkey - Unilateral
83
Weinraub, Bernard
M
New York Times
1100000
NE
V Corps - Embed
84
Williams, Daniel
M
Washington Post
796367
NE
Northern Iraq - Unilateral
86
Zacharia, Janine
F
Jerusalem Post
60000
ME
USS T Roosevelt
87
Zoroya, Gregg
M
USA Today
2200000
US
101st Airborne
88
Zremski, Jerry
M
Buffalo News
303832
NE
3rd Infantry
V3
Gender
01
Male
02
Female
V4
Embed/Unilateral
01
Embed
02
Unilateral
03
Qatar
V5
Paper
02
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
03
Baltimore Sun
04
Boston Globe
05
Buffalo News
06
Christian Science Monitor
07
Daily Telegraph (UK)
08
Denver Post
09
Guardian
10
Herald Sun
11
Houston Chronicle
12
Independent
13
Jerusalem Post
16
Mail on Sunday
17
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
18
Minneapolis Star Tribune
19
National Post
20
New Orleans Times-Picayune
21
New York Times
22
Observer
23
Oregonian
24
Palm Beach Post
26
Rocky Mountain News
27
Salt Lake Tribune
28
San Antonio Express-News
29
San Francisco Chronicle
30
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
31
South Bend Tribune (IN)
32
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
33
St. Petersburg Times
34
Sydney Morning Herald/The Age
35
Times of London
36
Toronto Star
37
USA Today
38
Washington Post
V6
Paper Circulation
01
up to 200,000
02
200,001-400,000
03
400,001-600,000
04
600,001-800,000
05
800,001-1,000,000
06
over 1 million
V7
Paper Location
01
United States
02
United Kingdom
03
Canada
04
Australia
05
Middle East
06
Other
V8
If US, then Region
01
Northeast
02
South
03
West
04
Midwest
05
Northwest
06
Not Applicable
V9
Length of Story in Words
01
less than 1,000
02
1,000-1,500
03
1,501-2,000
04
over 2,000
V10
Primary Focus of Story (Topic)
01
Soldiers' Lives (daily existence on the battlefield)
02
Reporters' Lives (dangers and methods, or other media involvement issues)
03
Update on Movements (ongoing tracking of battalions, taking Iraqi POWs,
prisoners)
04
Iraqi-American Relations & Future of Iraq (reconstruction, humanitarian
efforts, govt.)
05
Iraqi Daily Life (during war, infrastructure, family life, work, threats,
torture, looting)
06
American Interests (how war affected US)
07
Surrounding Countries/Kurds (Arab mujahideen)
08
Following the Troops (what troops left behind as moved to Baghdad)
09
Briefing Reports (news from officials in Doha)
10
Editorial or News Analysis (clear opinion being presented)
11
Military Capability and Strategy (articles which talk exclusively about
tech or strategy)
12
Search for WMDs (discovery of trailer, nerve gas traces, likelihood, links
with terrorists)
13
War at Home (rallies, etc.)
V11
Primary Frame (see proposal and examples for explanation)
01
Liberation
02
Invasion
03
Mixed
V12
Sourcing
01
Primarily American
02
Primarily Iraqi
03
Primarily other Middle Eastern/Kurds
04
Primarily British
05
Primarily Australian
06
Primarily Canadian
07
No clear affinity
08
No sources
09
Primarily UN/humanitarian agencies

 The Framing of Iraq War Reporting by Embedded and Unilateral Newspaper
Journalists

Appendix B
Tables
Table B1
Distribution of Stories in Sample and Newspapers (n=1,120 stories)
Count
Percentage of Sample
By Circulation
Small Papers (<400,000)
472
42.1%
Medium Papers (400,000-800,000)
425
37.9
Large Papers (800,000+)
223 (Total=1,120)
19.9  (Total=100%)
U.S. Papers by Region
Northeast
367
32.8%
South
201
17.9
Midwest
138
12.3
West
116
10.4
Northwest
24 (Total=846)
2.1 (Total=75.5%)[5]
Newspapers by Country
United States
833
74.4
United Kingdom
125
11.2
Canada
81
7.2
Australia
81 (Total=1,120)
7.2 (Total=100%)
Newspapers Inside/Outside U.S.
Inside U.S.
833
74.4%
Outside U.S.
287 (Total=1,120)
25.6% (Total=100%)

 Table B2

Breakdown of Topics Included in All Stories Sampled (n=1,120)

Topic
Frequency
Percentage of Sample
Update on Movements
307
27.4%
Iraqi Daily Life
243
21.7
Soldiers' Lives
212
18.9
Iraqi-American Relations
152
13.6
Surrounding Countries/Kurds
119
10.6
Military Capability or Strategy
40
3.6
Reporters' Lives
29
2.6
Editorial or News Analysis
18
1.6
Total
1,120
100


Table B3

Framing of All Stories Sampled (n=1,120)

Frame
Frequency
Percentage of Entire Sample
Liberation
714
63.8%
Invasion
179
16.0
Mixed
227
20.3
Total
1,120
100.1[6]


Table B4

Frames Used by Embedded/Unilateral Reporters (n=1,120)

Type of Reporter
Liberation Stories
Invasion Stories
Mixed Stories
Total
Embedded
80.9%
5.1%
14%
100%
Unilateral
44.6
28.2
27.2
100%

 The Framing of Iraq War Reporting by Embedded and Unilateral Newspaper
Journalists

Table B5
Topics and Frames Selected by Embedded and Unilateral Reporters
Embedded (n=591)
Unilateral (n=529)
Topic
Liberation
Invasion
Mixed
Liberation
Invasion
Mixed

Soldiers' Lives

165

34.5%

2

6.7%

20

24.1%

21

8.9%

1

0.7%

3

2.1%
Editorial/
News Analysis
2
0.4
0
0
1
1.2
6
2.5
2
1.3
7
4.9
Military Capability/ Strategy
26
5.4
0
0
1
1.2
12
5.1
0
0
1
0.7
Reporters' Lives
9
1.9
0
0
5
6.0
4
1.7
3
2.0
8
5.6
Update on Movements
196
41.0
10
33.3
33
39.8
50
21.2
5
3.4
13
9.0
Iraqi-American Relations
44
9.2
8
26.7
14
16.9
36
15.3
23
15.4
27
18.8
Iraqi Daily Life
31
6.5
7
23.3
7
8.4
65
27.5
71
47.7
62
43.1
Surrounding Countries/
Kurds
5
1.0
3
10.0
2
2.4
42
17.8
44
29.5
23
16.0
Total
478
80.9
30
5.1
83
14.0
236
44.6
149
28.2
144
27.2
100%
100%
 The Framing of Iraq War Reporting by Embedded and Unilateral Newspaper
Journalists

Table B6
Frame Choice and Sourcing
Sourcing
Liberation Frame
Invasion Frame
Mixed Frame
(n=714)
(n=179)
(n=227)
Primarily American
69.7%
7.8%
30.8%
Primarily Iraqi
15.1
58.1
42.7
Primarily Other Middle Easterners or Kurds
7.6
26.3
10.6
Mixed Sources
2.0
1.7
5.7
No Sources or Other Sources (British, Australian, Canadian, UN/Humanitarian
Agency)
5.6
6.1
10.2

Table B7

Framing and Newspaper Circulation

Paper Circulation
Liberation-Framed Stories
Invasion-Framed Stories
Mixed-Framed Stories

Total
Small Papers (<400K)
342
72.5%
55
11.7%
75
15.9%
472
100%
Medium Papers (400K-800K)
234
55.1
91
21.4
100
23.5
425
100
Large Papers (>800K)
138
61.9
33
14.8
52
23.3
223
100


Table B8
Paper Location and Framing


Paper Location
Liberation-Framed Stories
Invasion-Framed Stories
Mixed-Framed Stories

Total
Papers in U.S.
568
68.2%
114
13.7%
151
18.1%
833
100%
Papers Outside U.S.
146
50.9
65
22.6
76
26.5
287
100

[1]  The embedding system had previously been used in Bosnia, then as a way
of promoting compliance with the Dayton Accords. General William Nash,
credited with devising the system, stated that its purpose was to display
"the transparency of our operations and the firmness of our purpose"
(McLaughlin, 2002, p. 98) to the global media and public. However,
interestingly, the use of embedding in Bosnia was not publicized in
coverage of the Iraq embedding system, and the system was represented as a
Bush administration innovation.
[2]  These sources included: a listing on Poynter.org with names supplied
by newspaper editors
(http://www.poynter.org/content/content_print.asp?id=27956&custom=);
stories by and/or interviews with these reporters in publications other
than their own newspapers; and stories about these reporters on their
newspapers' Web sites, typically in a special war coverage section.
[3]  The New York Times and Washington Post are somewhat overrepresented in
the sample of stories. Stories from these two newspapers together comprise
26% of the entire sample of stories (the individual story is the unit of
analysis for this study). However, this weight may be in fact appropriate,
due to these major papers' level of elite media leadership for nationwide
newspapers (as shown in Danielian & Reese, 1989, among other studies).
[4]  However, a federal appeals court ruled on February 3, 2004, that the
military has no constitutional obligation to provide media access to troops
during combat. The decision stated that "the rise of the professional war
correspondent did not begin until at least the time of the Civil War. In
addition, it is not entirely clear that
in any of our early wars the media was actively embedded into units" (Flynt
v. Rumsfeld, 2004). Therefore, there is a legal precedent to prevent the
repetition of the embedding program, as well as any media access to the
battlefield should the military choose to refuse it.
[5]  Column for region does not total 100% because many stories were from
newspapers outside the United States, and some were in national newspapers
(USA Today and the Christian Science Monitor) which were not assigned a
region during coding.
[6]  Does not total 100% due to rounding.