Embedding reporters with the military is a practice that originated in the Crimean War (1853–1856) between the United Kingdom and Russia, when the London Times dispatched William Howard Russell to report on the war, thereby establishing the new journalistic figure of the war correspondent. It was also used in World War I, World War II (a famous example being war correspondent Ernie Pyle who often traveled and lived with the military units he reported on), The Falklands War (1982), and Afghanistan (2001).

However, the most extensive use of embedding was by the U.S. military in the 2003 Iraq War. This was a result of journalistic and military pressure. Although the U.S. military presented embedding as a loosening of censorship, in practice, embedding was part of the ...