Get the News From The Embedded Journalists

Phoenix, also the BBC has a journalist diaries page that has continuous updates. Of course, the BBC must edit that....

thanks

thanks!!

but when I think embedded I think sliver in my finger.

Husker- I am just repeating the phrase that the media uses to depict these guys. It sounds peculiar to me too!

Embedded journalism is hardly journalism. Its Cinema!

frolic- I think that if you or I were crouching in a tank that was taking fire, or standing right near where bombs were falling, and attempting to report what was happening, we would not consider what we were doing, "cinema".

They were unforgettable images: Residents of this southern Iraqi town openly welcoming coalition forces. They danced in the streets as a picture of Saddam Hussein was torn down.

That was yesterday.

Traveling unescorted into Safwan today, I got a far different picture. Rather than affection and appreciation, I saw a lot of hostility toward the coalition forces, the United States and President Bush.

Some were even directed towards the media. (It was the first time I heard somebody refer to me as a "Satan.")

To be sure, conversations with people on the street here begin relatively calmly. But the more they talked, the angrier they got.

In part, much of their discontent stems from the unknown. In speaking with them, the newly-liberated Iraqis ask the same questions that seem to nag many outside Iraq.

Why are you here in this country? Are you trying to take over? Are you going to take our country forever? Are the Israelis coming next? Are you here to steal our oil? When are you going to get out?

ABC News

Not surprising that there are different receptions from different areas like we've seen. The country had pockets of sub-cultures, with varying degrees of loyalty to saddam.

Beware 'embedded' sources of reports

By ROBERT JENSEN
Special to Newsday
Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream.
Just as the Pentagon has developed increasingly sophisticated munitions for the battlefield abroad, it has perfected propaganda to secure public opinion at home.
In that battle, American citizens need critical, independent journalists if they are to get the information necessary to participate meaningfully in the formation of policy. Never has that been more crucial, as the United States unleashes an attack on Iraq that signals a new era of the use of force. Unfortunately in the first few days of the conflict, and the months leading to war, American journalism has largely failed, on several counts.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/abs_news_body.asp?section=Opinion&oid=19115

Embedded reporter stays away from bean burrito MREs

One reason why: "Attending to sanitary needs requires a loss of instinctive discretion," writes Brian MacQuarrie. "Just grab toilet paper, head 100 yards into the desert, and do your business. Don't try this, as I have, in a sandstorm."

Even more: "I wear the same clothes for several days at a time. Cleanliness often means 'birdbaths,' in which water is splashed on certain hygienically challenged areas."

Boston Globe

Embedded journalists, courageous though they be, can only provide a worm's eye point of view on the war. And living among the troops. they have naturally formed friendships. While their stories are of value as human-interest reporting, it's probably not very objective.

I mean, with all due respect, why would the Pentagon come up with the idea in the first place?

"You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!"
-- Capt. Ronny Johnson, US Army 3rd Infantry Division

You would not have read that quote if it wasn't for an embedded journalist.

At least one embed, the Washington Post's William Branigin, is not making the Pentagon very happy today.

It was his account of the horrific killing of 10 Iraqi women and children that truly depicts the deadly chaos that defines Gulf War II.

Amazingly, even after his report was on the Post web site, other news outlets - including the NY Times and the AP - wrote up the CENTCOM line that warning shots actually were fired, without mentioning Branigin's contradicting eyewitness account.

Thus proving that compliant reporters still dominate the US war media landscape.

That means the Pentagon is unlikely to scrap the entire embedding program after this war is over. Because, so far, the ratio of puff pieces to hard-hitting journalism is quite favorable to the military.

It's small solace that there are a few reporters willing to report what they see.

No matter whose shoes get stepped on, no matter how sad and ugly the truth is.

Just finished watching live coverage of tonight bombing of Baghdad and I have to say the special effects were not very realistic.

RIP Michael Kelly and David Bloom.

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Uncharacteristically subdued weekend television coverage (including the talking heads; Paul Wolfowitz seemingly on Vicodin and Gen. Pace of the JCOS) continues to offer assurance that everything is right on schedule. Washington has a plan and they're following that plan and their plan is right on track and no one, quite frankly, can understand why anyone would think otherwise.

Meanwhile, all across America, people explain to pollsters: "Well, I mean, like, I totally supported the war and everything, because I think we have to, you know, free the Iraqi people from that madman, bin Laden, and we can't just do nothing while he sells nukes to the North Koreans, but, you know, I didn't think it was going to last all week."