I have to do that quite often as part of my work.

The idea is to try to see things from the point of view of all the people involved. In my case, as one example, I have to keep my eye on the "Left Behind" series and buy them even though I consider them to be religiously bigoted and marginally racist dreck, because a portion of the public wants to read them and thinks they are wonderful literature. I don't have to like it. I do have to take their viewpoint into account and to buy it, though.

Putting aside your American identity, if you happen to be American, isn't at all out of place in a journalist who's trying to be objective. The understanding is always that one can't divorce one's self from one's upbringing, but to be conscious of it and use that consciousness to step outside of it is very appropriate. Unless one is writing deliberate propaganda, that is. In that case, viewpoint becomes truth, something that happens on both sides of a conflict.

That doesn't mean that journalists who try to step outside have to be pro-peace, or anti-American. If the things they report are not of a glowing pro-war tint, they are frequently painted as anti-American, which begs the question of who is in charge of the standards. But you know something? Opposing a government policy is not anti-American. Speaking up is not anti-American. It's quintessentially American. Being correct all the time is not an American trait, something that government officials should keep in mind as much as their opponents should.

One other thing: It would be much easier to discount accusations of American soldiers doing dishonorable things like targetting journalists not "embedded" (read: "not with us") with military units had American soldiers not done dishonorable things in various prisons that have already been documented. I would never have thought that Americans would act like that except as renegades, but now, with renegade behavior so wide-spread, I have to stop and think. There are a lot of things I would have dismissed out of hand before that I have to stop and look at now. As citizens of a democratic country, we are all responsible, because ultimately, we are supposed to have the power to approve or to change the things done in our names. Without someone to speak up, more things that were once unthinkable have a greater chance of becoming, if not likely, then at least possible.