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Catapult the Media 219

ties in covering the Iraq war, despite the fact that he had obtained permission to
shoot from the bridge outside Abu Ghraib after talking with the prison's perime-
ter guards. The Pentagon's response to his death was similar to its answers to the
deaths of other journalists at the hands of U.S. forces, as U.S. officials attempted
to exculpate American soldiers for their role in his death. While declaring that
the attack was "regrettable," the Pentagon also stated that the soldiers "acted
within the rules of engagementv6 In explaining their actions, soldiers on the
ground who were responsible for the attack explained that they had mistaken
Dana's camera for a missile launcher, as the Abu Ghraib prison had come under
mortar attacks earlier in the day. The responses from the Pentagon and from
soldiers involved in the incident were not surprising for those who were familiar
with the military's refusal to place direct blame on the armed forces for the
deaths of reporters. Nonetheless, their refusals did not lessen the fury of Dana's
fellow journalists, as well as other media organizations in which Dana was in-
volved. Reuters, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, the Interna-
tional Federation for Journalists, and Reporters Without Frontiers collectively
called on the U.S. government to reveal more details about the circumstances
surrounding Dana's death. Tom Glocer, Chief Executive of Reuters commented
that, "coming so soon after the death of Taras Protsuyuk" (another cameraman
who had been killed by an American tank on April 8,2003), Dana's death had
motivated him to call "upon the highest levels of the U.S. government for a full
and comprehensive investigation into this terrible tragedy."7
The story of Dana is central to the ongoing struggle between embedded
reporters who have taken up positions within the American military in Iraq, and
unembedded, "unilateral" journalists, who have questioned negative conse-
quences of the embedding process. The question of journalistic ethics presented
by embedding is only one of many points of contention between those in the
American media who have willingly embedded themselves, not only with the
U.S. military in Iraq, but also within ideological positions that reinforce the Iraq
war, and others who seek to question the legitimacy of the U.S. role in world
affairs. It is through this conflict that one must understand the drastically differ-
ent interpretations of the Iraq war presented throughout different media systems.
The increasingly popular practice of embedding journalists receives much atten-
tion throughout this chapter, particularly in light of the view that "professional"
journalism is dependent upon media and government collaboration within the
war zone.
Unembedded reporting is a main source of information driving progressive
writings and reporting in the American Progressive-Left media. The independ-
ence from potential government censorship that unilaterals enjoy often translates
into stronger criticisms of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In addition, the independ-
ent reporting and anti-war views of A1 Jazeera, the Arab news outlet based out
of Qatar, stands out as an important example of critical journalism.
The alternative media systems seen in the U.S., Britain, Australia, and the
Middle East have one important thing in common: they all base their independ-
ence from official propaganda, to a large degree, on unilateral reporting, in order
to identify and highlight reports from, and perspectives on, Iraq that challenge