{"id":398,"date":"2025-10-27T16:59:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/?p=398"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:43:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:43:21","slug":"week-8-reading-response-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/week-8-reading-response-7\/","title":{"rendered":"week 8 reading response"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Deb first mentioned embedded reporting in class last week and specifically pointed to my own travels to conduct interviews for my project, I must admit I didn\u2019t immediately grasp what she meant. However, after reading Doornbos\u2019s reporting in Ukraine, Dickerson\u2019s work in the Dari\u00e9n Gap, and listening to Mariana Baran\u2019s <\/span>In the Dark<\/span><\/i> podcast about the Haditha massacre, I began to truly understand what embedded journalism is and why it matters so deeply.<\/span><\/p>\n

Embedding reporting somewhat takes away the divide between journalist and subject, and reminds the reader that at the end of the day, they are both just people. The removal of that divide I think is necessary in this type of reporting otherwise a story cannot reach its full potential.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What makes embedded stories stand out to me is that they can\u2019t be told\u00a0 from afar. Just as we want our loved ones present for life\u2019s most meaningful moments, great journalism sometimes requires being physically present. Like Miriam and Raphi\u2019s journey to Gummersbach, I found it necessary to travel to stadiums and soccer matches myself.\u00a0 Otherwise, journalism risks becoming mere hearsay, no better than tabloids. Through embedded reporting, more trust is needed, which ultimately results in greater credibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Baran\u2019s persistence in the In the Dark podcast especially stood out to me. I was struck by how she and Parker Yesko went door-to-door to interview Marines, even when confronted with signs reading, \u201cNo trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.\u201d It felt almost movie-like when Baran drove through West Virginia searching for Colonel Gregory Watt, who led the first investigation into Haditha, and in the process lost cell service, getting lost, and even had to ask locals for directions. I was also curious how much flexibility her editors gave her; after all those FOIA requests stalled, many editors might have told her to move on. Yet it seems she had the backing to keep pushing, which ultimately allowed her to uncover something powerful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every story takes time, but with embedded journalism, excellence often comes at the cost of years of persistence. Should this level of commitment be the standard or should embedded journalism be able to happen with quicker turnarounds? Perhaps we already see glimpses of it when broadcast journalists report live from the scenes of car crashes or school shootings.<\/span><\/p>\n

From these works, it\u2019s clear that embedded journalism is for reporters who are gritty and unafraid to get dirt or even blood on their hands, both literally and figuratively. To me, it also raised questions of when that divide between journalist and subject narrows, does the power dynamic shift, and do the chances of exploitation from the journalist grow stronger or weaker?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Deb first mentioned embedded reporting in class last week and specifically pointed to my own travels to conduct interviews for my project, I must admit I didn\u2019t immediately grasp what she meant. However, after reading Doornbos\u2019s reporting in Ukraine, Dickerson\u2019s work in the Dari\u00e9n Gap, and listening to Mariana Baran\u2019s In the Dark podcast<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}