Activity 6, The Press and the Military
Background to the American Intervention
Grenada, a small island in the Caribbean, had been taken over by the revolutionary "New Jewel Movement," which was a Marxist party supported by Cuba's communist leader Fidel Castro. In 1983 a military coup overthrew the government and killed the Prime Minister. Grenada was rife with internal turmoil. President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. forces to invade the island on October 23, 1983, ostensibly to protect the lives of American citizens and to thwart Cuban subversion. The opposition the U.S. forces encountered was less than formidable. Yet, there were serious problems in communications, which had been badly arranged. The equipment, frequencies and procedures of each of the services engaged in the invasion had not matched, and there was no overall joint communications plan.
The Press and the Military in Grenada
In part because of this assessment of the role played by the press and media during the Vietnam conflict, the American military changed the way it dealt with the press. When the U.S. invaded Grenada, the military deliberately barred journalists from access to the area of conflict. The military did release a number of reports on the success of the invasion, but the first independent facts that Americans received were from ham radio operators in Grenada. Two days after the invasion, the military brought a media pool of fifteen correspondents to Grenada. They accepted military censorship in order to gain access to Grenada. After the conflict was over, the military provided guided tours for journalists. On October 30--days after the invasion--all press restrictions were lifted.
Grenada pushed the military into discussion with news executives and reporters about how to arrange coverage of the smaller combat operations. The result was the Sidle Commission Report, named after retired army general Winant Sidle who oversaw the deliberations. It established a set of recommendations governing press-military planning in future operations. These recommendations called for the creation of press pools to protect reporters from fast-moving lethal environments and still ensure in-depth coverage back home. Other major conclusions were: public affairs planning should be conducted concurrently with operational planning; military planning should provide for the largest possible press pool and pools should be only necessary for the least amount of time; a basic tenet should be voluntary compliance by the media with security guidelines, which should be as few as possible; the military should provide for sufficient equipment and military personnel to assist correspondents in covering the operation; all of the media were against escorts who would have the power to censor reports. There was no consensus on whether or not commanders had the right to embargo stories or delay their release to the public.
The first test of the guidelines developed by Sidle Commission came in 1987, after the United States agreed to escort merchant ships through the Persian Gulf. Iran had threatened to attack any commercial vessel in the region. Pools, balanced with newspaper, magazine, wire, radio and television types, were placed on navy destroyers that escorted Kuwaiti tankers registered under the American flag. Most reports made on board the ships were approved for release. Some were held up for a few days and one was changed by a commander of one of the ships. When a tanker was damaged by a mine, a photographer in a helicopter was refused permission to take a photo which revealed that the American navy ships were behind the damaged tanker that they were supposed to escort.
Student Questions
Why were the press and media excluded from the early stages of the American intervention in Grenada?
Why was the press upset by this exclusion?
Was the exclusion of the media during the first two days of the conflict justified?
Return to Activity 6.
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