The dangers of embedded journalism, in war and politics

By David Ignatius
WashPost
Sunday, May 2, 2010

The American news media has made great use in recent years of a practice called embedding, in which journalists travel with the U.S. military to cover wars.

I've taken advantage of this chance to see the military up close. I have traveled to war zones with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; with Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander; and many others. I've spent weeks at a time visiting U.S. units in the field, hopping C-130s and Blackhawk helicopters and Humvees. As a result, I have seen more of Iraq and Afghanistan than I possibly could have otherwise, and I think my readers have benefited.

But embedding comes at a price. We are observing these wars from just one perspective, not seeing them whole. When you see my byline from Kandahar or Kabul or Basra, you should not think that I am out among ordinary people, asking questions of all sides. I am usually inside an American military bubble. That vantage point has value, but it is hardly a full picture.

I fear that an embedded media is becoming the norm, and not just when it comes to war. The chroniclers of political and cultural debates increasingly move in a caravan with one side or another, as well. This nonmilitary embedding may have a different rationale, but there's a similar effect that comes with traveling under the canopy of a particular candidate, party or community. Journalists gain access to information and talkative sources, but also inherit the distortions and biases that come with being "on the bus" or "on the plane."

(More here.)

Note: There are lots of comments to the above, including the following:

"katem1 wrote:
when your paper quits putting meaningless poll stories as headline news, and relegates actual news to further down the page, then you can speak with authority about this. back in the spring of '09, the Fix, Chris Cillizza asked the question about Prez Obama taking questions from non-mainstream media outlets--"Does he risk the ire of the media movers and shakers who typically set the conventional wisdom for a presidency?" well when he gets stupid questions from wapo like he did," any comment on what A-Rod has said?" is it any wonder the Prez would ask other outlets? Or when the vaunted paper of Watergate has polls about Tiger's popularity on the front page, or tout ridiculous polls that have 1009 respondents, 93% white and 74% conservative, it's hard to see objectivity from this paper especially when the opeders are Gerson, Kinsey, Kristol, Krauthammer, Will, Parker, Marcus, and let's throw a guest or two in like Newt or Palin. When we constantly see headline articles that are about the GOP, and why they are being obstructive instead of Dem articles about why they think their policies are good, when we have Ponnuru, Right Matters, oh, and the other new conservative blogger David Wegel, and of course Cillizza and his GOP cheerleading blog, replete with meaningless polls and GOP quotes and of course CC's quote about Chip "Barack the Magic Negro CD" Saltzman--"I've known Chip a long time and he is the furthest thing from a racist", Froomkin's firing, and of course Woodward's "embedded" 3 book cheerleading series about 43, is it any wonder that wapo is viewed as not quite as balanced as they seem to think they are? One just has to read the politics chat by the National editor Kevin somebody last week, he has to continually spin as he continually had questions that pretty much pointed out how many conservative voices are at this paper compared to how few liberal ones. And sorry, Iggy, your little explaination about missing the boat on the leadup to the Iraq invasion doesn't hold water, no pun intended. The reporters were excited to ride in a tank, and that's why they disregarded all of the millions of people protesting, disregarded the ridiculousness of "The Coalition of the Willing", and called foreign allies 'traitors' etc... amazing how only the western countries that had conservative governments in office at the time went into Iraq with the US. the Liberal PM of Canada said "Proof? I see no proof!!!" and by the way Huffpo has columns by people like Frank Luntz, the darling of the neo-cons too, so people can read what he has to say and make up their own minds. how about you get that 2X4 out of your own eye before trying to take out the sliver in mine?"
5/2/2010 7:54:07 AM

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