[Howlin]

I am really struggling with my feelings about the reporters in Iraq who were NOT embedded.

I have this vision of them being "hotel jockeys," letting everybody else do the work.

Plus, I just found out that they had to pay CASH -- by the day -- just so they could report and attend the press briefings.

Why don't they COME CLEAN with that stuff? It's clearly making them unreliable reporters.

I am waiting to see what happens when the embeds get back and they can tell the truth.

[Kevin Curry]

I am waiting to see what happens when the embeds get back and they can tell the truth.

There will be many long magazine articles and even books written by the embeds. I am very much looking forward to it.

[lorrainer]

I am waiting to see what happens when the embeds get back and they can tell the truth.

I am so looking forward to this--I hope they all make it back OK to do this. Maybe (I hope I hope) it will be a renaissance of sorts, and shows the public how honorable our military guys are--and bring them back to the same public regard they had in WWII.

[OldFriend]

Willing to jeopardize the lives of countless innocents to deny President Bush the support he deserved from the very beginning.

Nothing will change either. They will continue to suggest that this President is illegitmate and his mission to liberate Iraq is ill advised.

[okie01]

"I am really struggling with my feelings about the reporters in Iraq who were NOT embedded."

Thanks for the ping, Howlin.

This is a profound article (confession) that has enormous implications for the media.

Putting the best face on it, the media were held hostage by a rogue regime. They were like a parent whose child had been kidnapped by a vicious killer. And, rather than report the kidnapping to the authorities, they chose to rigidly comply with the instructions (implicit, in this case) on the ransom note.

In this event, the media made an ill-advised judgment, sacrificed their professional responsibilities and are just another helpless victim of the Saddam regime.

The alternative interpretation is that the media willfully chose to be used by this rogue regime in order to maintain their reporting privileges from an exotic, newsworthy venue. In which case, the media are no less than willing accomplices to Saddam's regime.

Were I CNN, I'm not sure I'd have wanted Mr. Jordan to make this public. It amounts to a confession of a.) weakness or b.) complicity, not a report.

This is appalling!

[longtermmemmory]

so Baghdad Bob was a street performer with a cover charge?

I really wonder why the rest of the media did not expose this. FNC did not have reporters there, did they know about CNN's situation?