Embedded War Photojournalists Get New (Unclear) Rules

The Associated Press' controversial publication a few weeks ago of a Marine dying on an Afghanistan battlefield has prompted changes to the military policy governing the photographing of wounded or killed troops. The problem is, it's unclear exactly what the military has decided.

The U.S. military's initial response to the publishing of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard lying mortally wounded after he was hit by a rocket propelled grenade was a complete ban, in eastern Afghanistan at least, on the photographing of wounded and killed U.S. troops. That decision was made in theater, not Washington.

But the Pentagon thought the new rules too restrictive. So U.S. military officials in Afghanistan were told by the Pentagon to try again.

According to a National Press Photographers Association report dated Friday:

This all started within the last two weeks when journalists arriving at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan discovered language in a Regional Command East new embedding agreement in eastern Afghanistan that said: "Media will not be allowed to photograph or record video of U.S. personnel killed in action."

When news organizations and press freedom groups protested the ban, the Pentagon (we now know) suggested a re-write. While the revision to the revised ground rules were re-issued by Regional Command East, and their press release made it sound like the lifting of the ban was their idea, today's comments by Whitman make it clear the "suggestion" to re-do the embed agreement that banned photographing KIAs instead came from Washington.

 

The new embed agreement released Thursday does allow photography of casualties but says that participating news organizations cannot use material where there is a recognizable face or other identifiable feature, and journalists cannot write about or photograph wounded troops unless those service members give prior permission.

But that agreement may not be the last development, according to Whitman. Today he said that while the Pentagon has stopped short of ordering another re-write, and while the field commanders' total ban on KIA images was too restrictive, the latest embed agreement issued yesterday is one that still falls short of the Pentagon's goals.

Whitman says he's asked for yet another revision, but that none came "by the close of business Friday in Afghanistan," he told AP...

...Journalists have observed that it's unusual for Pentagon and military policy to get "hashed out" in real time in public like this. Normally a doctrine dealing with something as serious as whether or not the death of a U.S. soldier in war on foreign soil is or is not going to be seen by the voters and policy-makers back at home would be worked out behind closed doors. But the August death of U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, 21, seems to have changed that.

It's a credit to the military that it's openly working out what the new policy will be. The back and forth between officials in Washington and Afghanistan ensures that the issues surrounding the photographing of U.S. casualties won't be made in a peremptory way in some general's office at the Bagram air base. This way, photojournalists will have a chance to influence the final decision.

Most importantly, troops and their families will also be able to weigh in and influence the debate too. Their concerns are, of course, no less important than those of photojournalists.

One argument made by the military and families is particularly hard to challenge. According to current policy, U.S. servicemembers with embedded journalists in their units have the right to tell photographers not to photograph them or not to use their names.

A servicemember shouldn't lose that right when he or she is wounded or killed, they say.

The solution to this, military officials indicate, would be the servicemember's prior consent to being photographed in the event he or she were wounded or killed.

That's a possible answer. A photographer in the heat of battle might not know whether a particular servicemember had, before becoming a casualty, approved a photo made after he was wounded.

But a release signed beforehand would presumably be on file with the unit commander who could inform the photojournalist of the servicemember's wishes.