Embedded Journalism
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As this war in Iraq was stretching on and out, as the invading armies reached Baghdad, and as the war almost came to the end, we found ourselves deeply involved into this battle, thanks to the new type of reporting known as "embedded journalism". The bombing of Baghdad and the siege of key cities in the Southern Iraq has come to us live on our television screens night after night. We have seen Hussein's presidential palace in flames, wounded women and children in hospitals, Iraqi troops surrendering, and the constant endless triumph of the coalition forces.
The news media have taken bold new steps in covering "Operation Iraqi Freedom", allowing American viewers an access to details unavailable to audiences of Desert Storm in 1991. Unlike the days of Desert Storm, when CNN carried the bulk of the media coverage of the war, the present war on Iraq has been provided with nearly continuous coverage from the major television networks as well. Among several others, news sources such as Fox News, CNN and NBC have cooperated with the U.S. government to pair correspondents with specific military units so that they could report directly from the deserts of Iraq. "While sending correspondents to the battlefield is nothing new, news networks now had the ability to broadcast directly from the front lines. And while we saw a similar use of technology during the first Gulf War, the access granted to correspondents in the current conflict was significantly greater...