Doubt and derision over Baghdad.

Our nation is still catching its breath after the 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, commercial-free, embedded, reported, re-reported, questioned, analyzed, parroted media frenzy that was the coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Never in the world's history has the combination of technology and reporters at the front lines brought war so vividly into our living rooms. In retrospect, how was the American public served by the correspondents, anchor-men, columnists, pundits, and "embeds" who had the job of describing the fight in Iraq?

Let's start with TV. The Media Research Center (MRC), whose staff studies such matters for a living, concludes that, on the whole, "reports ...