Your opinons on the reporters embedded with our troops. Is it ok? why or why not. Should they be allowed to shoot video, or just take pictures and write about what they see. Should it be censored more by the DOD? How does it effect OPSEC and the overall mission? Our value and need for the information they report here at home. If it's about embedded reporters anything goes. Let's hear it, the good, the bad, and the ugly, of our troops being forced to babysit civilan reporters and then being bashed in the media for doing there job.

I'm for it, the news needs to be reported, even more so in the US, as it is our military engaged in combat. (same goes for other allied nations)

BUT! It needs to be presented with context to what you just watched. For instance, merely reeling the video of a US marine shooting a guy on the ground and then reporting "a US marine shot a wounded Iraqi"

Well no, that isn't enough information for someone to make an accurate account of what they just viewed. The news needs to report everything they can. This includes not only the questionable things, the harsh face of war, but also the tender, reconstruction and civil affairs part.

The media needs to play a balancing act. Never purposely objectable like the Vietnam war, nor through "rose colored glasses".

Shows you that you got nothing to hide. When things like this happen, people know about it.
Also shows you what the troops gotta deal with.

I agree with Chocobo. But the one thing that even a well presented news story can't replicate is the emotions involved in war. The only way to really understand the harshness is to be there with the troops and understand what it's like to be shot at and survive, or have your buddy get killed right next to you. Embedded reporters experience this, and people critisize them for being too close to report unobjectively. But the reality of it is, it's hard to report something that involves so much emotion in the first place.

I believe the first priority should be OPSEC. Which I'm sure they take care of, and I hope the reporters realize. I don't care what the news saying about bringing the story out. More US troops being killed because some station wanted the better ratings is BS.

The Media has it's own agenda...........RATINGS! as was said before.
No they don't need to be embedded .

I can see both sides of this, my biggest problem with embedded reporters is they are not trained for combat. Now soldiers and Mrines alike have to worry about keepin a reporter alive, instead of the mission at hand.

Originally Posted by Sooners1

I can see both sides of this, my biggest problem with embedded reporters is they are not trained for combat. Now soldiers and Mrines alike have to worry about keepin a reporter alive, instead of the mission at hand.

This is very true...

There have been inbedded reporters (in one form or another) in every 20th and 21st Century conflict that the United States has been involved in. World War II saw a lot of it, but it was largely controlled by the military. From Vietnam onward, the major news broadcasters have involved themselves to the greatest extent possible and they've behaved VERY irresponsibly more often than not. Current opperations in Iraq allowed for the inbedded reporters as an experiment of sorts. I like being able to see what's going on over there, but I don't like the way the media filters and retells things calculated toward their own private agendas.

I think they should NOT be allowed to go with troops, or at least they must be from Military too, not like these civilian reporters.

But the real issue here is:
Who are the bosses of the Media and Reporters?
Are they the ones who actually run the US governments?

I bet their goal is to make bucks, hence it is very possible that they practice pressures on the MOD sothat their reporters are allowed to go with the troops.

Never underestimate the power of the Media bosses, maybe they are the guys behind the curtain of many powerful governments in this world.

Originally Posted by FlyingFrog

Never underestimate the power of the Media bosses, maybe they are the guys behind the curtain of many powerful governments in this world.

I'm not going to contemplate a huge conspiracy between politics and the media that has to do with the war, but it does come to mind.

I'm curious about how many instances there has been where the soldiers have had to risk their lives to save some reporter who got shot. I realize that a government controled media agency could be seen as a bit communistic/socialist but these reporters need some type of combat training. At least make them responsible for their own actions. If their own boys get shot, they need their own guys to carry him out and take care of them. I can't see a soldier having to give up his weapon and leave his team to carry some reporter out of a CZ because that guy got wreckless.