To finish the first chapter, you need to file those three stories. To file a story on a given soldier, you must have at least one sound bite relating to that soldier. The more sound bites you've collected, the more the story is worth. Depending on your relationship with the soldier, the story has a Spin: positive, neutral or negative. A story with a high positive or negative spin gets a payment multiplier. The spin, in turn, affects how the soldier reacts to the story after it's published. You might have a great collection of sound bites from a soldier who really dislikes you, and with that negative-spin multiplier the story is worth big bucks. But filing that story is going to further poison your relationship and will have similar effects on soldiers who like the subject of your story, turning them against you as well.
You can earn bonuses on a story by sending photographs along with it. Each such photo, whether it's from a photo op or an opportunity shot, must contain the soldier who is the subject of the story. You can always sell photos without a story if you need cash, but photos sold with a story are worth more. However, as soon as you sell one photo, other photos with a similar matrix of elements drop sharply in value. You can't sell 16 photos of the same thing. In addition, the value of unsold photos decays over time because their newsworthiness diminishes.
Making these kinds of decisions is an important part of the game. If you need money to upgrade your camera, you can file a negative story for quick bucks - but you'll then need to work harder to repair your reputation with the squad. A great photo is worth a lot, but if you haven't been doing the legwork to get a story on soldier in the photo, you might want to sit on it for a while until you get some sound bites so that it's worth even more. Selling other, lesser photos in the meantime may diminish the value of that great one - but so will sitting on it too long.
Once you've filed your third story, the first chapter initiates the climax. A militant suicide bomber gains access to the base and starts shouting threats and brandishing his explosives. The soldiers react and so do you. You can yell to warn people, access risky photo ops, and of course, try to stay alive when the bomb goes off. In the aftermath of swirling smoke and injuries, your actions can dramatically affect the soldiers' opinion of you while also giving you opportunities to rack up material for a fourth and final story. In the heat of the moment, you demonstrate who you really are to everyone. The story you file can make you famous, but the real story is in the choices you make and the consequences that result.
Subsequent chapters build off the first. The aftermath of the suicide- bomber story is the first thing, as your newfound journalistic success gets you access to better media clients and equipment. The choices you made during the climax also set the stage for your relationships this time around, and a couple of new soldiers join up to replace ones lost. The bulk of the second chapter is a major offensive against a town overrun by militants, a combat-heavy and very cinematic sequence. You won't be able to file stories during this sequence, so you need to do the best you can with the tools you've got. At the end of the chapter, you should have a lot of stories and photos to file.
Another chapter focuses on the Iraqi civilians. One soldier in the squad has befriended a local family and he introduces you to them. You learn their stories, working through guides you hire to translate your conversations. This ordinary family has been greatly affected by the war and the oldest son is considering joining the militants. Your interactions can affect his decision, and indeed the fate of the family at the end of the chapter is very much in your hands.
