For example in the Vietnam War, in World War II, in the Korean War journalists saw the whole thing; they had free access to cover the war. Because of the effect that journalists had in the Vietnam War, this right has been abrogated and eroded consistently since then, states MacFaydyen.
“As we speak, the war in Iraq is not being covered. Simply not being covered. There are tens of thousands of troops fighting, bombs going off, but there are very few journalists there covering because the military and the terrorists, or whatever they are, on the other side are unhappy about journalists being there, so they simply prescribe that they can't be there. Journalists get ‘embedded’ with and the generals and accept their instructions, otherwise access is denied. Similar in Afghanistan, there is almost no reporting. That's why we, as investigating journalists, find that the real story isn't being told. About what a soldier in a village did, that could be awful, that should be seen. But, but what has happened with the money and the power in the seats of governments where these decision really are being taken? So the real story of Iraq and Afghanistan is going to be told from Washington and London, more than anywhere else, much more so than from the war itself.”
State power erodes reporting
Nation states now control much more than they did before. In the last century the state could not, in a large measure, control one’s ability to go places to the degree to which they do it now. Today states have the ability to stop the work of investigative journalists.
