Between "tankcams" transmitting live reports from embedded reporters in the Persian Gulf and nifty 3-D studio graphics that show everything from details of a 2,000-pound bomb to a topographical view of Baghdad, viewers are seeing and feeling the war with Iraq unlike any other.
Sunday, as the ground war heated up with reports of more American casualties and U.S. soldiers being taken prisoner, news organizations were expecting more embedded journalists to begin filing from the heat of battle.
And after five days when the most vivid TV footage was primarily of bombs exploding in Baghdad, the specter of embedded correspondents in the thick of things raised the ante for news groups.
Nowhere was this more true than in the instant medium of TV, where what to show and when to show it can be a dicey call with ramifications.
That became apparent Sunday morning when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, making the rounds at all the Sunday talk shows, was talking to Bob Schieffer on CBS' "Face the Nation."
The network aired a few seconds of breaking news video from Al- Jazeera, purportedly showing American prisoners being held by Iraqis.
During a break off camera, CBS executives huddled with Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke and tentatively agreed not to show faces of the captives again until their relatives were contacted.
A few minutes later on CNN, Rumsfeld told Blitzer that it would be "unfortunate" if networks aired the footage. When Blitzer noted that airing it would let families at home know their loved ones were still alive, Rumsfeld said, "You could make that argument, if you wish." (As of midday Sunday, other networks had held off airing the video. Al-Jazeera later aired footage of American soldiers who appeared to have been executed.)
"Things are going to get a whole lot tougher from here on in," CBS News correspondent John Roberts said Sunday afternoon from Iraq, where he is with a battalion near An Nasiriyah, where the 11 U.S. prisoners reportedly were captured.
There is the possibility that embedded cameramen will show firefights between American and Iraqi soldiers on live TV, and that scenario brings with it a new set of ethical concerns for networks-- not the least of which is whether to show it.
"This is new territory for all of us," McGinnis said Sunday, noting that CBS News does not plan to show live video of, say, a soldier being wounded.
Then again, there's a risk that with all this technology, we could see someone die in a live firefight.
"It's going to get hairier from here on in," CNN's Walt Rogers said Sunday, especially as troops get closer to Baghdad. Just hours before, he said, four rounds of Iraqi 120mm shells had exploded 75 yards from him.
Of the embedding experiment, Rogers said he had no complaints and that his unit's commander had not prevented him in any way from reporting anything except his specific location, "which I'm sure the Iraqis know, anyway."
In Baghdad, Slate.com's Nate Thayer said the position of foreign journalists has become "increasingly tenuous."
Friday, he said that as he walked through the city, he and a photographer "were taken into what might be called protective custody and held for four hours. We were offered a choice between serving as human shields in government buildings or heading by car for the Iranian or Syrian border--which is impossible, since there are no roads, and incredibly unwise, since American forces might be bombing fleeing traffic. Eventually, we were returned to our hotel, with the warning that we could be expelled or drafted as unwilling shields at any time."