In the early morning hours of January 12, 1991, telephones rang in the rooms of a dozen or so newspaper and wire service reporters at the Dhahran International, the Meridian, and other hotels in Eastern Saudi Arabia. War with the regime of Saddam Hussein over the oil province of Kuwait had become inevitable.
The calls, telling the reporters to grab their gear and meet military public affairs officers in hotel lobbies, triggered the first media pools dispatched to cover Operation Desert Storm. For both the military and journalists, the pool system was viewed with misgivings. It...
In the early morning hours of January 12, 1991, telephones rang in the rooms of a dozen or so newspaper and wire service reporters at the Dhahran I...