Best part of three years embedded

You might not agree with the way he sees things in Iraq, but Michael Yon has spent longer there than any other reporter. Three years and holding. Yet, he’s not strictly a reporter. He’s an embedded blogger and he has a transparent agenda. The New York Times profiles Yon,

[Yon] does not work for any organization; no news outlet pays him for the hundreds of dispatches and photos he has produced. He publishes his work on his own Web site, michaelyon-online.com (some will appear again in a book set for release in April), and he also posts submissions from military people serving in Iraq. He says contributions from his readers have paid most of his costs, though he declines to say how much they have given… His upbeat outlook on the war has made Mr. Yon a favorite of the war’s supporters. But others in that camp have attacked him for insisting that Iraq is in a civil war, and for condemning American treatment of some detainees. link