Embedded or not, they still work for an American newspaper, which means that their stories can be censored via legal bullying. By contrast, WikiLeaks can't be stopped by the powers that be.
WikiLeaks' war logs contain 100s of short reports from troops on the ground. Now the question may be: what is more truthful, a platoon leader's report, or a wild-roaming journalist's report? The platoon leader must please his commanding officer, the journalist must please his boss. They both are constrained.
Yes, there are journalists who were in Afghanistan / Pakistan back in the 1980s during the war with the USSR who are visiting Taliban leaders. They can go where no U.S. soldiers can go, for sure. But is that bringing forth that much truth? Sure, it's valuable to listen to the enemy's point of view, but don't we all know already what the Taliban want?
You're forgetting that self-censorship is sometimes the greatest pressure on editorial staff. These newspapers's primary duty, unless their staff have signed up to the Munich convention of 1971, could be seen to be to advertisers, and then to industry regulators who they're hoping to get some kind of booster shot/protection aginst nu meedja from; that, at least, is not the case at Wikileaks.
Self-censorship is also driven by editorial staff purposely biasing their reporting to reflect the political biases of their readership. There's a sizeable segment of society that thinks that reporting on alleged abuses in Afghanistan is akin to terrorist-sympathising.
WikiLeaks' war logs contain 100s of short reports from troops on the ground. Now the question may be: what is more truthful, a platoon leader's report, or a wild-roaming journalist's report? The platoon leader must please his commanding officer, the journalist must please his boss. They both are constrained.
Yes, there are journalists who were in Afghanistan / Pakistan back in the 1980s during the war with the USSR who are visiting Taliban leaders. They can go where no U.S. soldiers can go, for sure. But is that bringing forth that much truth? Sure, it's valuable to listen to the enemy's point of view, but don't we all know already what the Taliban want?