The other boots on the ground: embedded press

In subsequent wars, such as Grenada and Panama, the military all but shut the press out. During the first Gulf War, the media was forced to rely on a pool system for coverage, embedding just a small number of journalists who then filed dispatches back to the press at large - often days late. "That led to a great deal of antagonism," says Mr. Hanson, who was one of the pool reporters in that war, writing for Hearst Newspapers.

By the time the second Iraq war rolled around, it had become clear to both sides that a highly restrictive system like a press pool would no longer work.

For one thing, the military had begun to realize that it might be advantageous to have more reporters on the ground - both to document the heroic efforts of US troops, many of which had gone unnoticed in the first Gulf War, and to counter what they knew would be a strong Iraqi propaganda effort. In addition, the advent of new technology - such as satellite and video phones - meant that reporters would likely find ways to cover the conflict on their own, regardless of approval.

In creating the embedding program, "We said, what is it we need to do, given the type of conflict we're going to be engaged in, the global information environment we find ourselves in ... and the way we knew the war would be covered," explains Bryan Whitman, the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for media operations, who was in charge of executing the program.

Many of the embedded reporters had never covered a war before, let alone served in the military. To some, this widespread lack of experience, combined with the reporters' tendency to bond with the units, gave much of the coverage a cheerleading tone.

George Wilson, who covered Vietnam for the Washington Post, and was embedded in this war with a marine artillery unit, saw a lot of the coverage as "looking around and telling the reader: These are magnificent kids, and I'm here in the dirt with them and I'm eating MREs [meals, ready to eat], and I'm sleeping in the sand." There's nothing inherently wrong with that kind of reporting, Mr. Wilson says, but because it was so dominant, the larger story - namely, the near absence of organized resistance - was lost amid all the "purple prose."

Still, other observers note that embedded reporting didn't always follow the Pentagon line, particularly when things went wrong. Early in the conflict, embedded journalists offered a dramatic look at the attacks on supply lines, for example. The Monitor's Ann Scott Tyson, embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division, reported that the Army nearly ran out of food and ammunition, due to poor planning.

There was also a handful of cases, according to Mr. Whitman, where embedded reporters violated the terms of their agreement and were ejected. The most publicized incidents along those lines involved nonembedded reporters, such as Fox's Geraldo Rivera, who drew a map on camera indicating troop positions, or Monitor freelancer Phil Smucker, who was accused of revealing troop locations in a TV interview.

But Whitman says his department regards those cases as "mistakes" rather than willful violations, and says he believes the program has led to a greater overall level of trust between the military and the media on the whole.

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