Christopher Paul

Christopher Paul of the RAND Corp., author of the new book, "Reporters on the Battlefield," a historical study of embedding journalists with units of the US military, was Tuesday's guest. Here are excerpts from his remarks:

"Considered from the perspectives of the press, the military, and the public... the embedded press consistently provides better results than the alternatives."

"Some better system could be invented, and it is not that it is perfect in all aspects.... Operational security [for military units] is a real vulnerability."

"If the military were fighting a peer or near-peer ... one could imagine the embedded press would result in several negative outcomes. One would be [that the enemy] might have sufficiently sophisticated electronic equipment to take advantage of the live broadcast by pinpointing a reporter's equipment ... and were thus able to call some indirect fire on that location."

"It is reasonably likely that the press will once again send underprepared reporters into the field as embedded reporters.... I think [that] is unfortunate. I don't have any easy solutions."

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