Article: Media casualties: journalists embedded with the military can't ask pertinent tough questions.

THE 24/7 NEWS COVERAGE of the Iraq war is often riveting television, but it is not necessarily good journalism. The journalists embedded with coalition forces can't do what journalists usually do: make sure they get the story correct before they go with it, and set the facts in a larger context. When embedded reporters comment on the action unfolding before their eyes, their reporting seems highly realistic, but it is in fact highly distorted--it shows only a very narrow slice of the war, told from a very particular angle.

Furthermore, the reporters are dependent upon the military not just for getting the story but for their own safety. "Journalists now eat, ...

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