Embeds In Bed With Military?
(CBS)
But the military has started censoring many [embedded reporting] arrangements. Before a journalist is allowed to go on an embed now, [the military] check[s] the work you have done previously. They want to know your slant on a story—they use the word slant—what you intend to write, and what you have written from embed trips before. If they don't like what you have done before, they refuse to take you. There are cases where individual reporters have been blacklisted because the military wasn't happy with the work they had done on embed.One can understand why the military would want to know a little bit about a journalist's work before setting up an embed situation. But Nordland's claims support critics' contention that the embed program is a way for the military to manage the media – not for Americans to get a better sense of the situation on the ground. At the same time, the military can only exert so much control over coverage of a war, and the embed program has yielded stories that the military presumably does not want out – most recently when Associated Press correspondent Ryan Lenz, who was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division, broke the story of a March 12 rape and murder in Iraq, an alleged crime for which former Pfc. Steven D. Green has now been charged.
Here's our conversation with Lara Logan about coverage of the conflict.