In today's modern world, the issues of objectivity and the media, as well as the role of embedded journalism in the study of politics, are quite interesting. Journalists have questioned whether objectivity, a conventional journalism discipline, is still needed or important in a modern reporting world and whether embedded journalism is still significant and relevant to the study of politics. As a result, the intent of this paper is to examine the consequences of journalistic objectivity and the role embedded journalism plays in political studies.
The Effects of Embedded Journalism and Journalistic Objectivity in Politics
In journalism, objectivity refers to coverage, which does not contain opinion or bias of any form. Today, the practice of collecting every side of an issue and maintaining an editorial voice has been relevant for some, but the approach of objectivity has been one way to give stories and get at truth. Currently, some journalists are for the belief that presentation of an issue or an event with a viewpoint can have an impact and get to an audience that if otherwise could be left out of the conversation.Media has a very significant role in various events such as war because the released news has a very huge impact on the bottom line. Embedded journalism is defined as the practice of putting journalists in and under the control of one military side in the period of a conflict that is armed. The reporters that are embedded get attached to a military unit and allowed to follow the troops in combat zones. One of the main benefits of embedding journalists was that a new standard of immediacy and openness was established for coverage of war as reporters in the military action could give a more incisive account of events through shedding the foreseeable speculations that might come up. On the other hand, embedding was viewed negatively in relation to the reporting bias, which tainted the objectivity that journalists must uphold.News has the potential of changing the opinion of the public and if about the war, can unintentionally have the enemy informed. In war, embedded journalists have an essential role in making and producing war news because they report personally from the battlefield. As a result, the public opinion is much affected by news from embedded journalists. Since media can influence the perception of the public, journalists are required to remain objective to be in the right side seeking for the truth and battling corruption as they inform the society. The news media serve the role of a watchdog by providing a check on society's powerful sectors not exempting leaders in the public and private domain.The coverage of media of the speeches by politicians during and after an event such as war plays a significant role in shaping the opinion of the public. For instance although prior to Iraq war the media emphasized the availability of weapons of mass destructions in Iraq, there were no mass destruction materials found by the U.S. army after the war. Since 17th century, the idea of the free press was supported by classical liberal philosophers based on the argument that openness in media is the most appropriate means of protection from power excesses.In events like war, misinformation in the media coverage of public is to win through misinforming the enemy. For example, although at the start of the Vietnam War the journalists had a chance to cover the event as they saw one of the key components was security review of the news to comprehend whether or not the news complied with the rules. In the Iraq war the officials limited information flow to media to safeguard operational security. The number of casualty in war is essential in shaping the opinion of the public because showing less number of casualties has less unconstructive impact to the society.Embedded journalism has a very important role, especially in the coverage of news related to the war. The embedded journalists depend on the troops for the purposes of food and protection. Their role is to enlighten the society through reporting of the war directly by showing the true face of the war. However, since the embedded journalists depend on the army, their reporting can be affected by restrictions due to the security of operations. In essence, the officers of public affairs and the commanders have to work in partnership to balance the requirement for media access with those of operational security (Sertyesilisik 152).Because of social relations, embedded journalists can possibly cover conflicts favoring the army in contrast to journalists that are not embedded, which can lead to misinformation in the reporting. Moreover, there can be occurrence of interpersonal relations between the embedded journalists and the members of the army because these journalists sleep, eat, live and are always together with the members of the army. The embedded journalists have the same uniforms as the army and are taken as a part of the army team. In some cases, these journalists find themselves supporting the members of the army because they also perceive themselves as the members of the team. As a result, these efforts affect the news objectiveness as they are reported by the embedded journalists, who fail to remain neutral like the journalists that are not embedded in making the news. Officials check the news and alter some parts, which means that the information gained by the embedded journalists is controlled, thereby making news not journalists' but officials' news, which results to potential public misinformation because the objectivity is already lost. However, with the introduction of pool system that solves the issue of excess number of journalists that are embedded in military. There are limits for the embedded journalists by the military as an important control mechanism over the journalists to reduce misinformation (Sertyesilisik 152).
Conclusion
Since the 17th century, the thought of free press was well supported because complete openness that is objective has always been seen as the best way through which protections from power excesses is achieved. Looking at the coverage during war time, it is clear that it is really hard or difficult to eliminate the misinformation of the society completely. Due to the minder system that is assigned to the embedded journalists that accompany the army in war, the journalists become dependent on the minders as they make their news because their capability for generating news is usually restricted by the places that the minders show them, thereby leading to possible misinformation in the news. Despite measures like pool and mining system reduction, some reasons may cause misinformation since the embedded journalist might establish interpersonal associations that potentially impact their news prohibiting them from performing their function as societies' watchdogs.
Works Cited
Sertyesilisik, Egemen. “Politics, Embedded Journalism and War News.” Global Journal for Research Analysis 5.2 (2016).
