ABSTRACT
The myth of the Vietnam War had a great impact on relations between military forces and the media in the conflicts after Vietnam. Starting with the Falklands War, and followed by the Grenada and the Panama operations, a completely new policy for dealing with journalists was established by Western defense departments and armed forces. The media image of the war was ruled by restrictions on journalists' freedom to visit front areas, troops, damaged buildings, and so on without military escorts. According to Samuelsson, to underline that the threat was serious, immediately after the ground offensive had been initiated a Saudi officer showed the press corps in Dhahram twenty-two withdrawn accreditations of journalists who had tried to reach Kuwait via Khafji on their own. Both in Iraq and Saudi Arabia it was mainly journalists from the US media who had admittance and therefore unique access to the war scene.
