Battle Company Is Out There

This piece of reportage is one of the most striking piece of journalism I have ever read. 'Battle Company Is Out there' is a breathtaking account of a US brigade fighting a losing battle for the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. It is also a piece writing with its own story.

Nominated for the 'Prix Bayeux,' the most esteemed award in war-reportage, it failed to win. Adrien Jaulmes, the Figaro Correspondent covering the war in Georgia with me was on the jury. He explained his shock to me about why a masterpiece failed to win as we rattled down dirt tracks on the back of a Russian military truck in South Ossetia.

"I was on jury and it was absolutely set to win. Then all of a sudden somebody said 'it's an embedded piece' - it's not a fair objective reportage. Suddenly half the jury started to panic about the whole idea of being embedded. And all the votes slipped away. I looked at the piece. And I suddenly realized all this bullshit about being embedded being bad is total crap. Is Robert Capa supposed to land on D-Day with the Americans and then rush over to photograph the Germans? Journalism is about access. You get what you get and you try to get as much as you can. I still can't believe it didn't win"

Read the piece and tell me what you think - is being embedded bad? What should a war- reporter do in trying to get to the front in these modern wars?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/magazine/24afghanistan-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1