Finally, even given all of the criticism of embedded reporting, there is a strong argument to be made that despite whatever criticisms can be lobbed at it, embedded journalism will always be beneficial so long as it remains a supplementary tool and is not relied on by news organizations to give them the entire picture of a conflict. One ironic development in the debate about embedded reporting is that the U.S. military program has faced far more serious criticism by journalists than its Iraqi counterpart. Many journalists were “embedded” in a sense with the Iraqi government – they were allowed to move about in Baghdad and other places under the watchful eye of Iraqi minders, who placed severe restrictions on their ability to cover anything potentially damaging to the regime. Erik Wemple, Minder Games, WASHINGTON CITY PAPER, April 10, 2003. These restrictions were far more severe than any that the U.S. has imposed on its embedded journalists. John Irvine, Media: Mind Your Language, THE INDEPENDENT, June 17, 2003, at 8-9 (describing the restrictions and recounting an interesting post-war reunion between a journalist and his now anti-Saddam minder). The very severity of these restrictions and the blatant effort to bias coverage, however, may be the reason for the lack of criticism. It is obvious to any journalists being “minded” that they should not take assertions at face value and should be critical of what they see as an obviously inaccurate source of information. The U.S. program, according to critics, offers a more subtle risk of bias in the form of friendly relationships and empathy with soldiers. This very subtlety may pose a more dangerous threat to the freedom of press than the Iraqi’s blatant restrictions simply because it is so much less obvious and therefore more difficult to avoid. At any rate, for proponents of embedded journalism, if journalists subject to Iraqi minders were valid sources of information, then journalists subject to fewer restrictions in American units should be considered valid sources as well. On this view, the problem is not so much a free speech issue as it is a question of the responsibility of journalists: it is their burden to avoid subtle bias, and any source of information is valid so long as it is not used on its own to provide the complete picture of the conflict.

B. Risks and Problems With Embedded Journalism

The embedded journalism programs adopted by the United States military have generated a number of criticisms as well. While the programs offer obvious advantages over some traditional methods of reporting, they carry with them drawbacks in terms of journalistic objectivity that may outweigh any potential benefits.

The objectivity of embedded journalists has been repeatedly called into question. This is often raised not so much as a direct violation of the First Amendment (in the sense of a law prohibiting journalists from reporting certain issues) as it is a violation of the free speech principles behind the First Amendment of preserving the independence of a watchdog press. Usually the charge is not that embedded journalists have deliberately become government propaganda machines, but that by unconsciously associating themselves so closely with a military unit, they have become unable to objectively report on the war without placing themselves on the military’s side. See Howard Kurtz, Embedded, And Taking Flak, WASHINGTON POST, March 31, 2003, at C01 (describing some of the embedded reporting as nothing short of “gushing” in favor of the U.S. position).

One telling anecdote demonstrating this kind of unconscious identification with soldiers occurred when “CBS News reporter Jim Axelrod … told viewers that he had just come from a military intelligence briefing, where ‘we've been given orders.’ Axelrod quickly corrected himself – ‘soldiers have been given orders’ -- but it was difficult not to notice his slip.” Robert Jenson, The Military’s Media, THE PROGRESSIVE, May 1, 2003, at 22. Other stories come from journalists who crossed the line into actual participation in the conflict: one Boston Globe reporter relates that when his unit came under fire and he was the only one to notice from where, he “yelled to the first sergeant in the gun turret above my head, telling him which building and which window the gunfire came from.” Scott Bernard Nelson, Embedded Reporter Comes Away From Front Lines Torn, BOSTON GLOBE, April 22, 2003, at E1. This permitted the gunner to open fire on the Iraqis, ensuring that the Americans won that particular engagement. Id. As the reporter pointed out, journalists embedded with a unit do not merely associate with them as friends: their survival is often linked, and a journalist traveling with a military unit has linked their own well being to that of the unit in a way that makes some kind of identification inevitable. This kind of unconscious identification adds to the risk that journalists will compromise the independence that is necessary for the press to perform either its watchdog or informer roles. Regardless of which one of these models is appropriate, a journalist who has “taken sides” cannot be expected to objectively report accurate information, and a watchdog press can hardly be effective when it considers itself to be a member of the group being watched. Embedded reporters also inadvertently promoted the government’s preferred media position in other ways, often because much of their information about what was occurring came from the unit commanders to whom they were assigned. Mario Basini, Dangers of Turning A TV War Reporter Into a Star, WESTERN MAIL, May 31, 2003, at 14. Other reporters who were assigned to supplement this information outside the program were often not relied on or were unable to find material that was potentially adverse to the U.S. with the same ease that pro-U.S. information flowed to embedded journalists. Id.

Additionally, it is not at all clear that embedded reporters are capable of accurately reporting on the conflict they are covering. While embedded journalists are able to report on the perspective of soldiers on one particular side of the conflict, many news organizations primarily relied on the program for their first-hand coverage of the conflict. As some prominent journalists have pointed out, because of the advanced technologies employed by the U.S. military, many of the units who saw combat never even approached their targets. Ashleigh Banfield, Lecture, Kansas State University, April 24, 2003. This leads to a kind of sanitation of reporting: the coverage of reporters can be slanted by their failure to see the actual results of the war due to the capacity for remote combat. This lack of perspective has been widely criticized, with commentators arguing that “the biggest problems with embedded reporters is that their reports often lack context … [o]ne commentator described the embedded reporter's views as akin to trying to see the war through a soda straw.” Mackubin Thomas Owens, A Founding Reunion: Embedment Reacquaints Freedom of Speech and National Defense, NATIONAL REVIEW, April 3, 2003. Journalists lacking any context other than their experience with soldiers from one warring side cannot expect to maintain a completely neutral position towards the war. Most television coverage would focus on a report from a single embedded journalist, and “[y]ou would get one person's embedded report and what you didn't see was someone taking the elements of three reports and putting together a nuanced and multitiered look at the day's events.” Verne Gay, Back From the Front: A Year Later, TV's Embedded Reporters Ponder the Merits of How They Covered the 'Drive-by War', NEWSDAY, March 18, 2004, at B02. While the straw’s eye view that commentators have criticized may be important, embedding is dangerous when it is presented to television audiences without other reporting and imagery to provide context and prevent the public from viewing only a sanitized version of the actual fighting.

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