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By Jeff Emanuel Posted in embedded reporting | Iraq | War — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

This is in response to kowalski's commentary here.

Note: By the way, lest any get the wrong impression from this diary or from kowalski's comments on the other thread, Alex has been one of the most supportive folks out there, both to my efforts and to those of others. Just wanted to make sure that was clear.

First, my work (and Roggio's, Yon's, etc.) does get exposure, from the Washington Times to the Weekly Standard to AmSpec. One of my breaking news stories was linked by Drudge, as well (bottom of linked graphic).

While that's not a page A1 story in one of the nation's top three most-read newspapers, it does mean that there are eyes-on my and our reports -- and, when you get down to it, that has to be enough (at least as a starting point). We do what we do not for glory or gain (clearly), but because we see it as being of paramount importance that accurate, eyewitness information be made available to the people here at home -- and, as a result of our work, it is. People still have to find it and decide to read it (in my case, they can hear about it on Laura Ingraham and on Melanie Morgan's show out in San Fran, and they can read about it in the Weekly Standard, the JPost, Human Events, the Washington Times, the American Thinker, AmSpec, here at RedState, the Hawaii Reporter, and more -- all of which should point them to my website, where I hope they'll stick around (or keep coming back) to get more information and more reports and analysis. (As an aside, the copious emails and comments I receive from eternally grateful parents of the soldiers I cover are reward in themselves, though that is not, of course, why I do this).

Please read on . . .

Also unfortunately is the fact that, since we are not staff reporters of "news," our submissions to newspapers and other outlets are all-to-often relegated to the Op-Ed page, rather than being considered for the news pages. Newspapers want their own trusted people providing news, though all too often (ironically), with regard to Iraq, those reporters are simply relaying what they were told by some other person they pay to tell them what happened somewhere, or to what someone else purportedly experienced. As a result of that, our reporting from the front, though not endowed by many with the credibility that comes with having an NYT or WaPo press card, is generally far more accurate than what is filed by those papers' staff reporters.

I won't get into it very deeply here, but the story I mention above, the exclusive amazing story from Samarra that folks will get to see online in 4 days, was pitched to one of these major newspapers (by me) -- and the response was "we're interested, but one of our people [currently sitting comfortably in America] will have to write it." I responded immediately with a resounding "no thanks", as I in Samarra, not some writer at home, had spent a month with the unit, and had interviewed all participants, walked through the events at the location, and had access to everything and everybody else involved, including the contextual knowledge of the coalition/AQ situation in Samarra. Another paper asked me to keep it to under 800 words for their Op-Ed page. Blah.

The bottom line is, though, we do have outlets (though none better than our own websites, which is why we try to flush traffic there at every opportunity), and we risk our lives to make the information available. It's up to the American people to decide to use that information. As far as media competition goes, that's a large part of what Bill Roggio and his PMI (an organization I've done a lot of work to help out with) are trying to do -- to set up a news-reporting version of the AP, AFP, Reuters, etc. that makes its living (inasmuch as a 501(c)3 can "make a living") filing reports from the front lines in the war on terror, through the use of embedded reporters. Is it possible? Yes. Is it sustainable? To this point, the conservatives and unaffiliateds who have been approached -- some people who spend an inordinate amount of time griping about the media we (Americans) have vs. the media they want us to have -- have proven unwilling to actually do anything about the problems they are so vocal about; therefore, PMI is behind the power curve as far as funding goes. If and when a conservative (or non-liberal) with actual vision to go along with his or her deep pockets steps forward and decides to back the frontline reporting project, then this, I believe, can and will become a powerhouse of journalism that more and more people will see and become affected by.

The other thing, of course, is complexity and nuance, and the attention span of the so-called "average American." People want black-and white, cut-and-dried, good-and-bad, success-or-failure reports from Iraq that they can hear in thirty seconds or skim in two minutes, and anything that purports to be accurate reporting or analysis will have trouble competing with that. For example, here's my tome on the current situation in Iraq as I saw and experienced it (link). It was finally (thankfully!) published by the American Thinker, a great online magazine which doesn't shy away from analysis and realistic reporting. However, before they agreed to run it, it was turned down (or ignored) by at least five print publications. Part of the reason for this is, I believe, the length and shades-of-grey style of description; another part, though, is the fact that almost all publications which would run such a piece have already picked their side of the "Iraq is going swimmingly vs. Iraq is an unmitigated disaster" divide, and refuse to publish anything which contains the least bit of negativity (for the former) or the least bit of positive news (for the latter). Anything accurate from Iraq, of course, will likely contain a bit (or more) of both; that's just the nature of the beast.

The situation in Iraq, rather than being black-and-white and easily explainable, is a million different shades of gray. The individual bits of reality seen there are so fluid that the conclusions one draws from them are often invalid before they can be expressed. Further, the complexity of the situation on the ground there is very difficult to grasp without witnessing it first-hand. Being back home for even a few weeks is enough to lose touch with its intricacy, as I found out during the two months I was home this summer between my April-May and August-October front-line embeds.

Perhaps the only thing more difficult that grasping that complexity – surrounding both the positive and negative developments there – is attempting to communicate it effectively to those who either cannot or have not been to the various front lines in Iraq to witness it for themselves. However, as one who has chosen to travel there myself for the express purpose of gathering information and communicating it to the people at home who can and will use it to make an informed decision on the situation there, that is a task that I have taken on, for better or worse.

Unfortunately, doing so means that those who are staunchly against the war there, as well as those who are for it, will be disappointed, as the news from there is rarely purely positive or purely negative, but, as mentioned multiple times above, is generally a dark or light shade of gray.

I understand the frustration on your part, I really do; allow me to conclude with this: as I said, there are outlets where we can publish our work, and more exposure means that more people will come across our reporting and, hopefully, be better armed before they draw personal conclusions on the state of the war and the future of Iraq.

While that might not sound like much in exchange for the daily and nightly risking of one's life for months at a time, against dedicated armed opposition who is targeting you every bit as much as they are targeting the soldiers that you are with, it is, for those few of us who do this, a risk that is one hundred percent worth it.