Military reviews "slant" for embed program

Security concerns already hinder the media in Iraq, but now the military may be adding another restrictive layer. In FP's Seven Questions this week, Rod Nordland, Newsweek's former Baghdad bureau chief, says journalists in Iraq are subject to a review of their previous work and their "slant" prior to their participation in the U.S. military's embedded media program.

The military has started censoring 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. There are cases where individual reporters have been blacklisted because the military wasn’t happy with the work they had done on embed.