During the first Gulf War, the 159 reporters privy to the battlefield used an unreliable system of trucks to get their stories out of the country. Cellphones were prohibited. TV viewers didn't know about the Army's celebrated "Hail Mary" maneuver, which flanked and routed the Iraqi Republican Guard, until a day after the war was over.

Today, more than 500 reporters embedded with troops and hundreds of other correspondents are covering the war in Iraq via videophones, satellite uplinks and tiny "lipstick" cameras that offer front-seat views from tanks and trucks. The world is tuning in 24 hours a day via thousands of Web sites and dozens of TV channels, including several round-the-clock news networks. CNN alone has 18 embedded teams in Iraq who go on air as often as 25 times a day.

But this deluge is creating a classic paradox of the information age: We know more than we ever did before, yet we may not be any closer to the real truth. Instead, the overload of scenes and dispatches is delivering an illusion that each hour's installment adds up to total insight -- whipsawing the public mood from highs to lows in the 11-day-old war.

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One vivid indication of the public response: The stock market is fixated on this TV-driven emotional seesaw, careening from joy to despondency within hours. The day that U.S. forces began their "shock and awe" bombing campaign, the Dow Jones Industrial Average capped its best week in more than 20 years by soaring 235 points in the New York Stock Exchange's most active day of the year. Then came the weekend, packed with wall-to-wall reports of minor military setbacks and the capture of a dozen U.S. soldiers. On the next trading day, every one of the 30 stocks making up the Dow fell, dragging the blue-chip indicator down 307 points.

"Everyone is confused because no one has been through this before," says Bill Nichols, managing director for block trading at Bear Stearns Cos., surrounded by more than 20 television sets positioned around the firm's trading desk.
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"If you had a supply convoy captured during the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, nobody would have heard about it," says Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, who retired after serving as the third ranking Air Force officer in the mid-1990s. "Now, not only does the commander hear about it but the commander-in-chief and the whole world hears about it." If such immediate coverage occurred during that failed attack by Nazi forces, "the American people might have thought we lost."

» Truth Remains Elusive In War News From Iraq