BROOKE GLADSTONE: The media were a strong and steady presence in the war against Saddam, partly because of a shift in military strategy. The Pentagon had been dissatisfied with the coverage of the recent war in Afghanistan because reporters didn't cover its successes. They didn't cover it because they weren't there. After Vietnam, it was Pentagon policy to keep reporters away from the battlefield, so with the Iraq war came an about face. Some 800 reporters were stationed with military units in an innovative program called embedding.

BOB GARFIELD:Embedded reporters had their own rules of engagement. They were to stay with their units. They couldn't move from unit to unit or visit civilian areas without losing their place. Under military protection, they had access only to information commanding officers were willing to provide. This led to the charge that the so-called "embeds" saw the war through a "soda straw," limited to covering the heroism of their units. But those stories exerted a mesmerizing power on cable TV, and the Pentagon called the embed experiment a great success.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Throughout the war, we spoke to NPR's John Burnett, who did move eventually, from one unit to another, and then abandoned his spot altogether to report on where the bombs had landed, places that his units did not go. This was from our first conversation, on the eve of war. [CLIP PLAYS]

JOHN BURNETT: I'm actually standing on the front porch of the Hilton Hotel in Kuwait City, which overlooks the Persian Gulf, and we're sitting here, waiting to embed with the troops, watching the waves and waiting for our call.

JOHN BURNETT: When I look back on being an embedded reporter, I think about the story that was so important in the moment, but my wife is a historian, and I guess that's influenced the way [LAUGHS] I look at some of these things, and I see that what historians are going to write about is the occupation, is the war for the peace, which is happening right now. The war that we covered, that the embedded reporters covered, was a foregone conclusion, and it's almost a footnote to what is really going to matter in sort of the grand scheme of things.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:And yet, at the time, it was so consuming. In fact we have a clip here about your worrying about the effect the close quarters with the troops would have on your critical reporting skills. [CLIP PLAYS]

JOHN BURNETT: When we live in the same conditions that these thousands and thousands of soldiers do, which is sand storms, sleeping on the floors of tents, a fine dust the consistency of talcum powder everywhere -- this is what the Marines like to call an "austere environment" -- I would say that you may start having journalists who left the United States as doves turning into, if not hawks, at least bluejays.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Did you turn into a bluejay?

JOHN BURNETT:[LAUGHS] The experience of being with a Marine unit, coming under fire, from enemy forces, can really make neutrality difficult in this. I think you and I had talked about the sense of, you know, did I grasp any of the opposition to the war when I was traveling and living with the troops, and I think we lost all trace of that. It's hard not to sympathize with the troops that you're living with in that environment.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Here's one from a week later, and, and that's exactly what we heard in your voice. [CLIP PLAYS]

JOHN BURNETT:A Marine captain and a colonel took three journalists in and so we went in surrounded by military, and we had to have out chemical suits at our sides, we had to have our bullet proof vests and our Kevlar helmets and all this stuff, and here's all the other unilateralist journalists all running around in tee shirts and jeans and kind of looking at us curiously and-- it reminded me of being with my parents on vacation and how you sort of look at all the other kids on the beach, and sometimes wish you were running wild like them, but it was kind of secure and nice to be with your parents too.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I spoke to some media critics during the war, and I remember one of them said "Whoever thought up the embed program deserves three extra stars for their epaulet, because it couldn't have been planned better to co-opt--" [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

JOHN BURNETT: Stroke of genius.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: -- yeah -- "to co-opt the reporting experience." Would you agree?

JOHN BURNETT: Well, it, it was a tradeoff from the beginning, and a year later it, it still looks that way to me. I mean keep in mind that embedding is a, a goofy name for an arrangement that has existed going back decades with war correspondents and the military. Now it just rhymes with "in bed with," which is unfortunate. [LAUGHS] Because that's the impression that it gave a lot of people, including Tim Robbins who has a new play called Embedded, which makes the reporters seem like duped, complicit buffoons. I think it served both sides. The military got a lot of dashing press with, you know, some very courageous troops fighting against the Saddam resistance, and reporters got a good story. It's always a tradeoff, and it was in this war too.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:This is a difficult question, I think, for a lot of people who see it from far, far away. We see our troops in action; we see how well-trained they are. But as you said yourself, we hardly ever got to see where the bombs landed, and that was because the cable news operations and, and a lot of the reporting in general was focused on this embedded experience. It seems that the Pentagon hijacked the coverage of the war by creating this wide-open opportunity that I guess was an offer we couldn't refuse.

JOHN BURNETT: Well, I mean I've, I've also talked to a lot of other embedded reporters in the last year, and it really depended on what unit you were with and where your "soda straw" was pointed. When you and I signed off early last summer, I was very ambivalent about the embedding process because I think there needs to be more independent movement on the battlefield so that someone can find out if a shell shot downrange hit its target and what the result was and be able to go into the villages through which the invasion force is passing and find out what people are saying. We were very limited in our ability to do that.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:You talked about Tim Robbins' play here in New York that presents the American reporters there as complete dupes. Is that frustrating?

JOHN BURNETT: Well, it is, because the invasion of Iraq is being seen in light of what we know now and all of the problems with the premise of this war all over the front pages and in the presidential campaigns. And so I think people are feeling they were duped by the reporting that led up to the fall of Baghdad. On this play that's out, it's unfair to the journalists who worked very hard and risked their lives to try to get the story right. That's what we knew at the time. That's what we saw through our periscopes. Whether history judges it right or wrong, you can only report what you know.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: John, thanks so much.

JOHN BURNETT: It's my pleasure, Brooke.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: NPR's John Burnett served as an embedded reporter during last year's Iraq invasion with the First Marine Division. [MUSIC]

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