[notahacker]

The thrust of PG's claim was that journalists use the term as a synonym for "guilty" and in response, a journalist has argued that they actually use it in line with the dictionary definition of "characterised by conflict or controversy". A bit rich to accuse other people of "not engaging with actual criticism" when your reading comprehension falls that far short...

In my experience, journalists use it mostly for people who are likely to be fired shortly, many of whom are not "guilty" of anything other than being in a position of responsibility in an organization, department or team that is perceived as underperforming or being taken over by critics.

[ghaff]

I actually would find embattled a bit of an unusual word choice for someone on trial for a crime outside of a broader context. If someone's arrested for murder, we'd call them a suspected murderer or alleged murderer, not someone embattled.

As you say, I associate embattled more with, say, an executive caught up in a scandal or who is likely to be dismissed for poor performance.

[notahacker]

"alleged" or "suspected" is actually perhaps a better example of the sort of not-always-correctly-interpreted-by-the-readership journalistic phrase PG intended to highlight, since "alleged" can both mean "this person is [probably going to be] on trial for this offence, so because it's so serious we're respecting the legal process by not asserting they did it even though there's substantial or even blindingly obvious proof" or "we're just reporting something someone once claimed and because it's so open to dispute we have no desire to get sued by making the claim our own"