To amplify on my earlier comments, there are still enough of the old school journalists who believe in telling the story straight to make the difference clear. (From your comments on various threads, you seem to fit in that group. Don't take what I wrote personal. )

As for your comments about embedding, I recall an interview with an editor or publisher from the MSM, circa 2002 or 2003. (Sorry, I can't recall more detail than that.) His complaint about the embed process was that the journalists became too sympathetic to the soldiers. (I think he referred to it as bonding with the people they were supposed to be covering.) He didn't like it because it wasn't producing enough dirt.

IMHO, the adversarial relationship is a creation of the media. If they wanted to end it, they would have to begin by rejecting the current concept of journalistic "ethics" and return to the older ideal of dispassionately presenting the facts.

As an example of a journalistic I respect, check out Charlie LeDuff at the Detroit News.