When it comes to the mainstream media, embedded journalism is hardly a new phenomenon. In fact, collusion is its most essential nature, argues writer and editor Tom Englehardt in Mother Jones (in language that makes it sound inspired by the renewed fever over the Matrix sequel, it seems to me):

It may seem that the Pentagon invented “embedding” for the war in Iraq. The media has certainly reported the phenomenon that way. But it’s worth remembering how ordinary a phenomenon embedding actually is. The world is largely brought to us, here in these United States, by the deeply embedded, complete with a deeply embedded worldview and little consciousness of the rules by which the embedees live and work. It works so much better that way, when no one bothers to point out the problems, and no one even thinks that you might be an embedee.

And, speaking of the extent of collusion:

On April 21, New York Times reporter Judith Miller broke what appeared to be one the most important stories since the war in Iraq began. In a piece that ran on the paper’s front page, Ms. Miller reported that a scientist in Saddam Hussein’s chemical-weapons program, in speaking to U.S military investigators, had claimed that Iraq had destroyed illicit weapons in the days leading up the war.

The revelation was huge news because if the scientist’s claims were true, they supported President Bush’s stated rationale for the war: that Iraq was a menace to world peace because it was secretly harboring chemical and biological weapons.

But the deal Ms. Miller made to get her piece was wildly peculiar, and it provoked concern not only among the usual journalism ethics hand-wringers, but also among her colleagues at The Times. New York Observer