As someone who has never been embedded with the troops, I hesitate to judge those who criticize the practice of embedding — even if they themselves also have never been embedded.

So I will simply state the facts and cite quotations around one person’s criticism of the Defense Department’s practice of placing journalists — embedding them — with military units in Iraq and Afghanistan. That person is a famous movie director, Brian De Palma, who has recently brought forth a controversial film, “Redacted,” about the Iraq war. Done in the form of a documentary, it is a fictionalized version of a real event — the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl who was eventually murdered along with her family.

On Oct. 23 De Palma was interviewed on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” segment. He complained about what he said was the mainstream media’s poor job reporting what was going on in Iraq. He didn’t have anything good to say about the embedding of U.S. journalists: “Now we have embedded reporters, and all the stuff you’re seeing is basically public relations pieces. So the next time, you know, you see the embedded reporter … running around and getting it, supposedly on the ground in Iraq, the real story, maybe you should wonder a little bit what the truth value there is.”

The NPR interviewer, John McChesney, said that when he told De Palma he had been embedded and was able to report some soldiers’ statements critical of the war, De Palma “seemed surprised.”

I wanted to get some reporters’ reaction to De Palma’s words. James Crawley, president of the Military Reporters and Editors (MRE) organization, said: “I think his comment denigrates the objectivity, hard work and substantial risk that every journalist in a war zone takes on a daily basis. It also ignores the sacrifices in lives of journalists killed while covering the war. … While embedding isn’t a panacea and has significant drawbacks, it provides one of the best opportunities to get an accurate story in a dangerous environment.”

I also turned to two crack reporters who won journalistic awards for articles they had written while embedded for Stars and Stripes, Mideast Bureau Chief Joe Giordono and Monte Morin, who was with the paper until earlier this year and now works for the Los Angeles Times.

Giordono called De Palma the “worst type of critic,” because he was uninformed but “thinks he knows what he’s talking about.” He wrote: “Are there issues with the embed system? Yes, there are. But any reporter worth their salt knows that they can write what they see. … We’ve had our fair share of run-ins when we’ve published stories or photos that the military did not like.”

Giordono pointed to an event this month in Kirkuk, Iraq, when 4,000 men showed up to apply for 1,300 police force openings. A near-riot broke out with overwhelmed guards fighting back the crowd with batons. Stripes published photos and an article clearly describing the mayhem.

The military’s version of the event, described in a news release with photos a few days later, made no mention of the violence.

“This is a perfect example to me of the importance of embedded reporters, along with clear evidence that we’re willing to report things the military does not want shown,” Giordono said.

Morin had a similar reaction. “The reality is, if you’re a good reporter and you’re embedded, you write about exactly what you see,” he said. “I did that for Stripes for two years and, in some cases, what I wrote made units and story subjects very happy, while in other cases it made them angry enough to put me on the next helicopter to Baghdad.”

In fact, Morin earned a fair amount of notoriety on the ground, his fame preceding him in the most unlikely of places, as this story of his makes clear: “On one of my last embeds in Iraq I spent time with a unit in Baghdad, where a public information officer or the CO had — just before my arrival — posted my photograph, story samples and suggested ‘talking points’ on the wall of their dilapidated latrine in a dusty combat outpost. I guess they figured the latrine was the best place to get the word out about my visit and offer a few thoughts on how to respond to my questions.

“Well, when I arrived for my embed — and before I myself visited the latrine — I ran into a young enlisted soldier who told me he’d read some of my work. I was thrilled — ‘So you’re a loyal Stars and Stripes reader?’ I asked.

“‘No,’ the soldier said, kind of gloomily. ‘I read about you on the shitter wall. They’ve got your picture there and a list of things we’re supposed to tell you. They don’t want us to tell the truth.’

“Well, after that conversation I was even more determined to describe everything I saw there, and exactly as I saw it, because I could tell that young soldier and many others like him wanted and needed someone to tell the story exactly as it was happening — good, bad and ugly.”

An editor can urge a reporter what to do, but in this case the inspiration couldn’t have been as great as what was written on the wall of a loo.