Embedded Journalism & War

I think that I speak for many of us when I say that the clip we watched last class with a British journalist was at certain points both amusing and surprising. The practice of embedding journalists among troops appears to have mixed results. On the one hand, it does provide an on-the-ground perspective on a war which makes the events being reported more dramatic, attention-grabbing, and likely to inspire empathy along with other emotions among viewers, all of which increases the likelihood of maintaining viewer interest (and network profits). The downside is that wars usually consist of more than just the few events and viewpoints that embedded journalism can provide, an example being the exaggerated effectiveness of the anti-scud missile STARS system which we learned in class can be attributed to not only the trend among CNN during the course of the war but to the limited perspective and information available to the journalists on site. In addition, the idiosyncratic reporting methods of journalists results in the surprising and occasionally amusing random transition between topics (as seen in the in-class video) which can be confusing. I suppose what I'm getting at is: How can viewers get a better picture of the full scope of a war than this somewhat inconclusive and unreliable (not to mention dangerous for reporters) method, and how should viewers perceive what they learn from embedded journalism?