Embed This - Glenn Reynolds

Embed This - Glenn Reynolds (AKA Instapundit) has this excellent article about the performance of the media in the war so far in his TechCentral column today.

The "embedding" program has been a stroke of genius for the Pentagon... The embedded journalists have come to identify with their units, and have formed a bond with American soldiers and Marines that will likely last a lifetime and fundamentally alter the character of the press in terms of its relations with the military.

So as a conservative who's both been in the belly of the media beast (OK, in its duodenum anyway) and on the side that the media usually opposes, I'm thinking - stroke of genius! All we have to do is repeat this tactic a few more times, and the war for society will be won!

We just need to embed some reporters:

• at a Concealed Carry Reform meeting; actually encountering some real peoples' real-life self-defense stories, and seeing that "gun nuts" aren't the caricatures that the major media and Hollywood have made them out to be, will be a major coup.
• With the Taxpayer's League. It'd be nice to if these people'd see that the average low-tax activist is not some sort of cigar-chomping robber baron in training.
• A pro-life group. To see the real people behind the boogeyman scare stories, and the real complex moral analysis behind the ready-fed sneer quotes would be quite a service to society.
• Anywhere in the Red States. The major media have no more understanding of "flyover land" than they did about the military until the embedded reporters began travelling with the GIs, Diggers, Desert Rats, Paras and Lobsterbacks (Yes, I'm proud of my command of international military nicknames. What's it to ya?).

It could only improve things.

Posted by Mitch at March 31, 2003 02:58 PM