The St. Cloud (Minn.) Times sent a reporter and photographer to Afghanistan to cover a St. Cloud reserve battalion that was half way through a year of duty. St. Cloud Executive Editor Susan Ihne describes how the newspaper took a "Real Life, Real News" approach to coverage and how the newspaper developed some approaches to cover a portion of the cost of the trip.

By SUSAN IHNE
St. Cloud Times Executive Editor

	Click on each photo to view a larger version of the picture and photo information.

St. Cloud is not a military town. We didn't even have a military reporter until a beat realignment a year ago. So embedding a reporter and photographer in Afghanistan surprised us as much as it did our readers.

In April 2004, the 560 "citizen" soldiers in the U.S. Army Reserve 367th Engineer Battalion, based in St. Cloud, shipped out for a year of duty in Afghanistan. We had covered their training in Wisconsin from the minute they were called up. We created a special section on our Web site to keep up with the unit through bloggers, photos and stories. We started a laptop drive, which has collected 138 used laptops for soldiers so they can communicate home and watch movies in their down time.

Our work created a growing attachment between our readers and the unit. The next logical step was to follow the troops to Afghanistan. Photo editor Dave Schwarz and higher ed-turned-military reporter Michelle Tan wanted to go when the troops left. We were far from ready — among other things, we needed about $11,000. So we aimed for three weeks in November, after the troops had been in place about six months and at the beginning of the holidays.

Our goal was to have short daily stories that showed what life is like for our soldiers. We ended up running a daily story for 22 days on real-life aspects of being a soldier in Afghanistan: washing clothes, eating, shopping at the bazaar for holiday gifts, decorating your "hooch," religion as a morale booster, awards ceremonies, town hall meetings, Purple Heart recipients, medical care, Zulu standard time, mail call, karaoke night, living with pollution, the first U.S.-Afghan soccer game, commuting to Kabul, Thanksgiving dinner, etc.

Each story had a photo in the newspaper and maybe six others online. Each day, the chaplain in Afghanistan printed out the stories from our Web site and posted them where all the soldiers could read them.

Each Sunday for four weeks, we ran major page one centerpieces: the land-mine mission, secondary missions toward reconstruction, interaction with natives in schools and orphanages, recreating home.

Our final piece, an eight-page special section looking at the world's land-mine problems, ran Feb. 6 with photos, graphics and plenty of live information from soldiers clearing them in Afghanistan so the country can return to farming and economic prosperity.

(Note: The latest report is available on the newspaper's web site, www.sctimes.com, under Follow the Troops.)

The reaction from the soldiers and our community has been great. It seems like everyone knows someone who is serving. Readers said they loved the stories because they told them what their loved ones and friends were experiencing; the stories weren't troop movements and death tolls. The soldiers said the stories put into words what many of them were unable to explain to their families. And the photos helped show what being there was like.

One mother said she, her daughter-in-law and her 2-year-old would run to get the newspaper each morning. They would read it five or six times before they would e-mail their guy in Afghanistan. It gave them something to talk about from his life instead of just updating him on what was happening at home. He told them: "It's just like it's written. I couldn't put it in words myself like that."

A trip to a military location requires some strong planning. We found these approaches helpful:

• Talk with those who've done this before — for us that meant editors/reporters at The Leaf-Chronicle at Clarksville, Tenn., and the Army Times.

• Get written permission from the unit and military hierarchy.

• Get permission from corporate to fly in military aircraft.

• Apply for visas, passports.

• Prepare two similar laptops, install instant messaging, test against firewall.

• Rent satellite transmission equipment.

• Buy/borrow/rent helmets, flak jackets.

• Start immunizations three months in advance. Take malaria pills two weeks before, duration of trip and four weeks after return.

• Pack camera and video equipment, including lots of canned air to clean equipment.

• Buy airline tickets and insurance for cancellations or flight changes.

• Exchange spending money in currencies for all countries visited.

• Pack appropriate clothing (get information from the unit).

• Leave vital information with editor: blood type, nearest relatives with phone numbers.

• Designate a.m. and p.m. editor and times for messaging, calling.

• Get similar maps for the embedded journalists and editors at home.

• Prepare a list of all electronic items and serial numbers.

• Get insurance/war riders.

• Buy equipment such as duffel bags, boots, adapter plugs.

• Create lists of contact phone numbers with unit, embassies, Department of Defense, airlines, etc.

• Build story plan but be prepared to change it.

• Send a photo of the embedded team in the country back to the newspaper as soon as possible for house ads.

• Set up a live radio interview from the embedded team in the foreign country.

• Put together a PowerPoint presentation as soon as possible when the team returns so team members can present talks in the community. (In three months, our team has spoken to more than 2,000 people in at least two dozen groups such as family support units, the Kiwanis Club, high-school classes, Minnesota Newspaper Association annual lunch, etc.)

• Link to the coverage at the top of the umbrella page on your Web site.

• Write behind-the-scenes editor columns in advance and during the trip.

• Explain to readers any and all restrictions on coverage for embedded reporters so they don't think they're getting a controlled version.

We wanted to identify some ways to cover some of our expenses.

We created a 25-by-3-foot banner and put it in a local bank for three weeks for people to sign with their support. The banner contained the logo of the Times and the bank. The team presented it to the troops. The bank paid $3,000 to participate.

We shared all stories and photos by daily e-mail with newspapers across Minnesota and Wisconsin if they had soldiers in our unit. By the end of the three weeks, we had requests from small-town papers as far away as Illinois. We shared freely with all, but many offered to pay something. We collected more than $2,000.

We're planning a 128-page magazine in May to chronicle the yearlong deployment of the unit. The back cover, inside back and inside front cover will go to advertisers for $6,000 to cover the cost of giving a free magazine to each member of the unit. Re-order forms will be inside; if more than 500 sell, we start making money.