Field Notes of a Hotel Warrior, Part II

Yesterday I began a series of posts on my experiences as a journalist during the Gulf War. As I noted then, my assignments during the war took me to Baghdad, Amman, Damascus, Dharan, and Kuwait City, but I spent most of the war (about three months) in the Hyatt Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Today's post deals with the impact of round-the-clock television news coverage on war reporting...

Part II: Fighting CNN's War

After the air war began, the US military created a daily briefing for the press. I’m guessing that they modeled their briefing plans on the “5 o'clock Follies” in Vietnam, but the Gulf War was a different kind of conflict, taking place in a different media environment, and the Vietnam model didn’t work. This was war in the age of satellite television, waged under the watchful eye of CNN and its non-stop, 24/7 news cycle.

All of which created serious problems for the military briefers. Day after day they appeared at the podium with “battle summaries” of yesterday’s news, then got hammered with questions about fresh battlefield developments they knew nothing about – developments that had been reported moments earlier on CNN. As a reporter, I was embarrassed for these guys. And the General in charge, I soon learned, was furious.

One evening, during the early days of the air war, I got a call in my hotel room shortly after 11 p.m. from Captain Wildermuth, General Schwarzkopf’s press liaison. He asked me if I could round up three or four other reporters and proceed to Central Command’s headquarters across the street (“the bunker”) for a meeting at midnight with the General.

I made some quick phone calls, and a half hour later, four colleagues and I were escorted to the military’s underground headquarters. Schwarzkopf entered the room at exactly midnight and he had steam coming out of his ears.

“You guys are beating up on my guy every day in the briefing room and I want to know what we need to do to put a stop to it,” the General said.

“The problem,” we explained, “is that the briefers are showing up with old news. We’re asking them about stuff we’re seeing on CNN and they don’t seem to have a clue…”

“Well, it’s making us look bad, and I’m not about to have the US military looking bad on American television. I want to know how we can fix this.”

“How about having a senior level officer come directly from the War Room to the briefing room?” we suggested. “That way we’d know that the information was accurate and up-to-date…”

“Done,” Schwarzkopf said. “Ron, I want this fixed by tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Sir,” the Captain said, as Schwarzkopf left the room.

It was like a scene out of The King and I. “So let it be done!” Yul Brenner commanded. And it was.

The next morning we were briefed by Schwarzkopf’s Deputy of Operations, Marine Corps General Richard “Butch” Neal, who, as promised, came to the hotel directly from the War Room. Butch did a terrific job, that day and for weeks to come. And to his credit, he always tried to give us at least one piece of news that we hadn’t seen yet on CNN.

Postscript:

The daily briefings made Butch Neal a star. In an interview with Northeastern University’s alumni magazine in 2004 he said, “I didn’t understand the magnitude of the exposure at the time. I remember my wife saying to me, ‘You can’t realize what it’s like – you’re on every TV station all the time, every radio all the time’.” Butch got more than his fifteen minutes of fame. But in my opinion, he deserved it.