Embedded Journalists
Well, I’ve done it. I picked up a copy of Ernie Pyle’s book Here is Your War and begun reading it. Granted, I’m only on page 18, but I’m enjoying it so far.
It made me think about war correspondants in recent years and how there’s been a lot of hype about embedded journalists in the recent conflict with Iraq. Some of the coverage has almost made it seem like embedded journalists are a novelty, a new trend with this military operation. Are they really? Today, I read about how Ernie sailed from England to North Africa with the Army as part of a convoy. He was one of a small group of journalists with these troops. They even had two Army censors assigned to them. The second chapter, which I’m reading now, is about a pair of Army photojournalists and what their work is like. There were correspondants in Vietnam and probably some in Korea and World War I. We know journalists were in the Middle East throughout Desert Storm. And what about Matthew Brady in the Civil War and the other reporters who followed the soldiers around? It wouldn’t surprise me to learn about someone reporting earlier conflicts. Why does it seem like such a new thing now?
