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January 2009 |
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Embedded Journalism: Brief Notes on the Issue By CIME Director Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "embedded journalism" has become a phrase replete with ambiguity as to whether the concept improves or depletes the quality of war reporting. Inserting journalists in the heart of a military unit potentially provides a valuable tool for nourishing public opinion, by democratizing sources of information drawn directly from the war zone. However this procedure also presents a harsh threat to the very accuracy it is trying to attain, by placing embedded journalists under the wing of the military and thus relinquishing their independence. As an article from the BBC poignantly expressed: "while the military sees propaganda as a weapon in itself, a journalist's role is to cut through the half-truths and report both sides of the story" ( How 'embedded' reporters are handling the war , BBC News, March 25th, 2003). In cases when embedded journalism produces media coverage during the Iraq war, there is a contradiction between the realistic nature of information that can be portrayed to civil society as the embedded journalist provides a form of "reality show" of the war experience, and the implications of this immersion under military order which - through stipulations in the journalist's work contract, for example - precludes objectivity. Caught up in this conundrum, embedded reporting is bound to yield its independence to the military, becoming a key instrument in information warfare. |
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Center for International Media Ethics - CIME, Inc. |
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