By R. Lee Sullivan

"Embeds." It’s a loathsome expression, to be sure. Assigned to accompany individual military units throughout the Iraq offensive, "embedded" reporters are in a perfect position to cover the story of a lifetime. You don’t hear "embeds" complaining about the term, and with good reason. They’ve been handed two of journalism’s most precious assets: access and time.

Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam once remarked that being a reporter means sitting in an office and getting shit on. To report any story, you have to be willing to spend long hours under unpleasant circumstances. The basic facts that define an issue are easy to obtain. What’s difficult is finding the people who actually put policy into action, and learning what they know. That means joining their world, for a while. Otherwise, you risk becoming dependent on press briefings, public relations, CEOs, analysts, and other big-picture "experts."

Edward R. Murrow called it getting the "little picture." Ernie Pyle called it doing his job.

It’s not the only way to cover a war, but it is the best way. Military historians S.L.A. Marshall and John Keegan remind us that the crux of any war is what happens in the trenches. Strategy is all well and good, but it's worthless unless men and women on the ground take charge and execute at critical moments. That's the real story.

Still, pundits question the objectivity of reporters who spend too much time with a single military unit. Are they getting too close to the story? Will they pull punches?

As Michael Herr observed in Dispatches, the grunts always take care of you. I discovered that for myself when I covered a Marine Corps training operation back in 1989, spending a few days in the field with a combat engineer company. Troops almost always welcome journalists into their ranks; they’re usually flattered that somebody's interested. They realize that you don't have to be out there with them. You do grow fond of them — they're just kids, after all.

Don’t fool yourself, though — the Pentagon is taking a tremendous risk with these "embeds." The policy might very well backfire. Despite the boasts of public relations flacks and the ravings of conspiracy theorists, nobody controls the media. Much like wars, stories tend to take on a life of their own.

Reporters were virtually "embedded" in Vietnam, accompanying in-country units almost at will. Print journalists like Dan Ford, David Halberstam, and Tim Page took great risks to report from combat zones, producing some of their era’s finest work. Along the way, they witnessed some truly awful events. The stories they filed revealed American courage, but descriptions of combat conditions also made Americans question our motives in Southeast Asia. Today's "embedded" journalists are likely to see, and report, some very shocking things.

Expect some powerful print reporting. However, in a war made for television, broadcast journalism remains what broadcast journalism always is — lightweight entertainment.

At a certain point, broadcast combat coverage becomes "infotainment." Fox's packaging, in particular, appears distressingly similar to its sports programming: animated graphics, dramatic sound effects, overblown anchors. The nature of the medium itself is distorting context. What value are live feeds in the very midst of battle?

That's voyeurism, not newsgathering.

A surreal moment on MSNBC from the first weekend of war: "embedded" reporter crawling next to a prone marine, asking what he’s aiming at. Pure science fiction, and not a little bit disturbing. The moment evoked Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola exhorting Martin Sheen to "keep fighting"), or Starship Troopers ("It's a dirty planet, a bug planet!").

When life imitates art on the battlefield — well, I'd rather not consider what that means. Especially when life imitates pop art.

Author's Note: For another take on the media's war coverage, read Tim Goodman's column from the April 9th edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.