Embedded; The Media at War in Iraq, An Oral History

by Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson

• ISBN13: 9781592285495
• ISBN10: 159228549X
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2004-09-01
• Publisher: Lyons Press

Summary

This is a collection of deeply emotional and highly personal accounts of covering the Iraq War. Many of the world's top war correspondents and photographers speak candidly about life on the battlefield. Here are articulate and heartfelt descriptions of fear and firefights, of bullets and banalities, of risking death and meeting deadlines. With over sixty interviews Katovsky and Carlson allowed these journalists to step outside their professional role as journalists and examine the lethal allure of combat reporting. Each interview maps its own personal path and narrative arc, while presenting an emotional window to war and reporting. Taken individually, each offers a unique view of the most-covered war in history. Collectively, this is an eyewitness to history that will do for the war in Iraq what Michael Herr's Dispatches did for Vietnam.

Author Biography

BILL KATOVSKY lives in northern California.

TIMOTHY CARLSON lives in Colorado.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. i
Charging into Bad-Guy Country with Custer Detroit News Reporter John Bebow	p. 1
Covering Wars Takes Her Far from Home San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Anna Badkhen	p. 11
The Race to Baghdad CBS Evening News Correspondent Jim Axelrod	p. 21
Dodging Death Voice of America''s East Africa Bureau Chief Alisha Ryu	p. 29
Doing Good Deeds with the Devil Docs CNN and Time Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta	p. 33
Groundhog''s Day at CENTCOM''s Media Center New York Magazine Media Critic Michael Wolff	p. 39
"My M
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Excerpts

The Moral Compass of Iraq---New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns
"Every lie tells you a truth."
*******
There were correspondents who thought it appropriate to seek the approbation of the people who governed their lives. This was the Ministry of Information, and particularly the director of the Ministry. By taking him out for long candlelit dinners, playing him with sweet cakes, plying him with mobile phones at $600 each for members of his family. And giving bribes of thousands of dollars. Senior members of the Information Ministry took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from these television correspondents who then behaved as if they were in Belgium. They never mentioned the function of minders. Never mentioned terror. And in one case a correspondent who actually went to the Internet Center at the Rashid Hotel and printed out copies of his and other people's stories --mine included--specifically in order to be able to show the difference between himself and the others. He wanted to show what a good boy he was compared to this enemy of the state. He was with a major American newspaper.

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Excerpted from Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq by Bill Katovsky, Timothy Carlson
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