iraq

Video Essay By Philadelphia Inquirer Photographer David Swanson: Ar Ramadi, Iraq

A personally-narrated journey through the battlefields of Iraq with Philadelphia Inquirer photographer David Swanson.
[16-minute multimedia presentation—RealPlayer]
[Link to article]

PBS' "POV" Presents Esteban Uyarra's "War Feels Like War" [War Photographers in Iraq]: July, 2004

"The Iraq War introduced the concept of the "embedded" reporter to the world. Their highly choreographed, round-the-clock reporting gave the Pentagon extraordinary control of war reports back home, and also allowed the military to quietly contain those journalists who wanted to report the war independently: the so-called "unilaterals." "War Feels Like War" is the story of an international group of journalists who refused to be "embedded." Motivated by the desire to get the 'real' story, the unilaterals ventured onto the battlefield without military protection and frequently without guides. They often found themselves reporting the stories that went uncovered in the wake of the triumphal columns of soldiers and embeds: civilian deaths, injuries, chaos in the streets, and a more mixed reception for the invaders than appeared in first reports. [...] Along the way, "War Feels Like War" gives riveting vérité portraits of the journalists themselves, whose conflicting feelings of attraction and repulsion to combat mirror the ambivalence of their audiences over modern-day "war as spectacle." The journalists are alternately cynical about human motives and seduced by the romanticism of being war correspondents. Thoughts of self-importance are punctured by the grim realities of war. Their daring is in constant tension with the impulse for self-preservation. 'This is the story of journalists caught up in a new era in war-reporting, says director and cameraman Esteban Uyarra, 'and of a media world now divided in two camps — 'embeds' and 'unilaterals' — and what that means for how we see and feel about war.'"
[POV "War Feels Like War" Site]
[Film Synopsis]
[Discuss the film]
[Rent from Netflix]

NPR's Alex Chadwick: "Images from Iraq: Embedded in Fallujah": June 17, 2004

Interview with LA Times reporter Tony Perry about his experience embedded with U.S. Marines in Fallujah.
[NPR]