U.S. Military Gets Picky about Whom It Embeds

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In an interview with Foreign Policy, former Newsweek Baghdad bureau chief Rod Nordland said the situation in Iraq is "a lot worse ... than is reported. The administration does a great job of managing the news." He added, "The military has started censored many [embedded reporting] arrangements. Before a journalist is allowed to go on an embed now, [the military] check[s] the work you have done previously. They want to know your slant on a story -- they use the word slant -- what you intend to write, and what you have written from embed trips before. If they don't like what you have done before, they refuse to take you." In response to the question, "Are journalists and the military seeing two different pictures in Iraq?" Nordland said, "To some extent they are victims of their own propaganda."