The main concept discussed intensely in the final chapter of Phillip Knightley’s “The First Casualty” was that of media correspondents being “embedded” with military personnel while covering wars. Media correspondents would get annoyed when they felt like the Pentagon was trying to “manage” them, so instead of managing the media, the Pentagon decided to “incorporate” the media into the national war effort itself (531). Embedding media outlets was not a new concept. In the First World War, the British army embedded six war correspondents with their troops (531). Apparently, though that version of embedding served the interests of the military well, it was a disaster for the integrity of journalism. Indeed, one of the correspondents, Sir Philip Gibbs, said in 1923 that “we identified ourselves absolutely with the Armies on the field… There was no need of censorship of our dispatches. We were our own censors” (532).

While embedding media correspondents may seem like a good short-term solution to keep everyone happy (the media can still do their war stories, and the military does not have to worry about the media leaking potentially sensitive information), it clearly leads to a corruption of exactly the type of “fair and balanced,” “objective” coverage we ideally like to think our media provides. Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, commented on this phenomenon, saying that American media outlets had “wrapped themselves in the American flag and substituted patriotism for impartiality” (542). Media correspondents are not oblivious to this danger, but they were disillusioned about their role as “embedded” war correspondents. Initially, they thought that their embedded status would enable them to give an accurate and complete picture of the war – how it was progressing, what mistakes were being made, who was being held accountable, and what false claims were being made (534). Instead, “questions were rationed, follow-up questions were frowned upon, and answers were often evasive” (535). The correspondents were merely pawns in the military’s attempt to control what information the American public was getting about the war.

When the war correspondents caught on to their role in this game, they were still in a difficult situation. Given George W. Bush’s assertion “you’re either with us or you’re against us,” the correspondents either had to present the information the military was comfortable with them presenting or they had to face the potentially awful consequences of presenting a dissenting perspective (537). In fact, since the Pentagon had made it so clear that it did not want correspondents reporting from other perspectives, it followed that independent correspondents had to be acknowledged as enemy targets (541). Thus, war correspondents refusing to comply with all the rules of “embedding” were actually endangering their own lives.

Clearly, the war correspondents had little choice but to follow the guidelines set for them by the Pentagon. And thus they became the version of “embedded war correspondents” that we are familiar with today. Their coverage of the famous toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue and the saving of Private Jessica Lynch followed the mold exactly of what a “good embedded war correspondent” would say and how he or she would say it. As it turns out, the way the embedded correspondents covered these events is far from completely truthful (543-547).

What approach should war correspondents take from here on out? Knightley seems to believe that the question is more what approach will war correspondents be forced to take from here on out. Letting the media have full range of potentially sensitive information is not desirable or realistic. Embedding the media in the way that has happened in the current Iraq war leads to confusion. A letter to the editor published in the Guardian states tellingly that “despite scouring two national newspapers every day, listening to the radio, surfing the web and watching the TV news, I have absolutely no clue how the war is going” (543). Clearly, something needs to change. Either “embedding” as we know it must change and a return to a more objective system of reporting can occur or the entire way in which we view our war correspondents must change.

Knightly ends his book with a fairly bleak outlook as to what the future holds for war correspondents. In keeping with President Bush’s “with us or against us” dichotomy, along with the increasing realities presented by insurance and other institutions, Knightly thinks that future war correspondents will be given the options of becoming embedded with troops or they will be forced to be independent correspondents, whose lives and jobs will constantly be in great danger (547). Given these two dire options, Knightly boldly ends his book by declaring that “the age of the war correspondent as hero appears to be over” (548). In its wake, we come upon the age of the war correspondent as government tool, in the hands the one-sided interests of the government. Thus, we must alter the way we view our war correspondents, questioning the “truth” they present to us time and time again.