War correspondent
This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2021) |
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories first-hand from a war zone.
War correspondence stands as one of journalism's most important and impactful forms. War correspondents operate in the most conflict-ridden parts of the world. Once there, they attempt to get close enough to the action to provide written accounts, photos, or film footage. It is often considered the most dangerous form of journalism.
Modern war correspondence emerged from the news reporting of military conflicts during the
History
People have written about wars for thousands of years. Herodotus's account of the Persian Wars is similar to journalism, though he did not himself participate in the events. Thucydides, who some years later wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War was a commander and an observer to the events he described. Memoirs of soldiers became an important source of military history when that specialty developed. War correspondents, as specialized journalists, began working after the printing of news for publication became commonplace.
In the eighteenth century the Baroness
The first modern war correspondent is said to be
Early film
News coverage gives combatants an opportunity to forward information and arguments to the media. By this means, conflict parties attempt to use the media to gain support from their constituencies and dissuade their opponents.
Crimean War
William Howard Russell, who covered the Crimean War, also for The Times, was perhaps the first modern war correspondent.[4] The stories from this era, which were almost as lengthy and analytical as early books on war, took numerous weeks from being written to being published.
Third Italian War of Independence
Another renowned journalist,
Russo-Japanese War
When the telegraph was developed, reports could be sent on a daily basis and events could be reported as they occurred. That is when short, mainly descriptive stories as used today became common. Press coverage of the Russo-Japanese War was affected by restrictions on the movement of reporters and strict censorship. In all military conflicts which followed this 1904–1905 war, close attention to more managed reporting was considered essential.[6]
First and Second Balkan Wars
The
First World War
The
French authorities were equally opposed to war journalism, but less competent (criticisms of the French high command were leaked to the press during the Battle of Verdun in 1916). By far the most rigid and authoritarian regime[citation needed] was imposed by the United States, though General John J. Pershing allowed embedded reporters (Floyd Gibbons had been severely wounded at the Battle of Belleau Wood in 1918).
Second World War
United Kingdom
At the beginning of the war the matters of war reporting came under the authority of a Public Relations Section created as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).[7] At the beginning of World War II, the War Office urged all the major newspapers to nominate men to accompany the BEF. While the official process of vetting journalists took place, the War Office authorised to provide a limited ‘eye-witness’ coverage. Journalist Alex Clifford became one the first ‘eye-witness’ who joined the BEF units in France in September 1939.[8] The first official group of British, Commonwealth and American correspondents arrived in France on October 10, 1939 (among them were O. D. Gallagher, Bernard Gray). [9]
All of the war reporting was subject to censorship, directed by the chief press censor George Pirie Thomson.[10] At the start of the war the Royal Navy implemented a policy that curtailed war correspondents' presence on its ships. This positioned them as the most conservative branch of the British military in terms of media engagement.[11]
Vietnam War
Vietnam-era war correspondence was markedly different from that of WWI and WWII, with more focus on investigative journalism and discussion of the ethics surrounding the war and America's role in it.[13] Reporters from dozens of media outlets were dispatched to Vietnam, with the number of correspondents surpassing 400 at the peak of the war.[14] Vietnam was a dangerous war for these journalists, and 68 would be killed before the conflict came to a close.[12]
Many within the US Government and elsewhere would blame the media for the American failure in Vietnam, claiming that media focus on atrocities, the horrors of combat and the impact on soldiers damaged morale and eliminated support for the war at home.
Gulf War
The role of war correspondents in the Gulf War would prove to be quite different from their role in Vietnam. The Pentagon blamed the media for the loss of the Vietnam war,[15] and prominent military leaders did not believe the United States could sustain a prolonged and heavily televised war.[16] As a result, numerous restrictions were placed on the activities of correspondents covering the war in the Gulf. Journalists allowed to accompany the troops were organized into "pools", where small groups were escorted into combat zones by US troops and allowed to share their findings later.[16] Those who attempted to strike out on their own and operate outside the pool system claim to have found themselves obstructed directly or indirectly by the military, with passport visas revoked and photographs and notes taken by force from journalists while US forces observed.[12]
Beyond military efforts to control the press, observers noted that press reaction to the Gulf War was markedly different from that of Vietnam. Critics claim that coverage of the war was "jingoistic" and overly favorable towards American forces, in harsh contrast to the criticism and muckraking that had characterized coverage of Vietnam.[17] Journalists like CNN's Peter Arnett were lambasted for reporting anything that could be construed as contrary to the war effort, and commentators observed that coverage of the war in general was "saccharine" and heavily biased towards the American account.[17]
These trends would continue into the
The issue of imbalance in the global war correspondence
Only some conflicts receive extensive worldwide coverage, however. Among recent wars, the
Books by war correspondents
- Tolstoy, Leo (1855). Sevastopol Sketches.
- Herr, Michael (1978). OCLC 3732647. Previous ed. also available.
- Weber, Olivier (2002). Afghan Eternities. Le Chene/UNESCO (with Reza).
- Hedges, Chris (2002). ISBN 1-58648-049-9.
- Fisk, Robert (2005). The Great War for Civilisation. Fourth Estate. ISBN 1-4000-7517-3.
- Filkins, Dexter (2008). OCLC 213407458.
- Junger, Sebastian (2010). ISBN 978-0446556224.[19]
War correspondent under International Humanitarian Law
War correspondents are protected by the
See also
- Breathing (memorial sculpture)
- Embedded journalism
- Headline Hunters, a 1945 newsreel short about Canadian WWII war correspondents
- Journalists of the Balkan Wars
- List of foreign correspondents in the Spanish Civil War
- List of war correspondents
- Milblog
- Military journalism in the United States
- Peace journalism
- Press pool
- War correspondents 1942–1943
References
- ^ Encyclopedia of Journalism (2009). United States: SAGE Publications, p. 1441.
- ^ Knightley, P. (2004). The First Casualty: The War Correspondent As Hero and Myth-Maker From The Crimea to Iraq, United Kingdom: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 4-39.
- ^ Kepplinger, Hans Mathias et al. "Instrumental Actualization: A Theory of Mediated Conflicts," Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine European Journal of Communication, Vol. 6, No. 3, 263–290 (1991).
- ^ "WAR CULTURE – War Correspondents". Military History Matters. 2012-11-12. Retrieved 2019-02-12.
- ^ Jules Claretie, La vie à Paris, Bibliothèque Charpentier, 1896, p.367
- ^ Walker, Dale L. "Jack London's War." Archived 2012-10-17 at the Wayback Machine World of Jack London website.
- ^ Philip Knightley (1982), The First Casualty The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker, revised edition, London, Melbourne, New York, p. 202-203.
- ^ Philip Knightley (1982), The First Casualty The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker, revised edition, London, Melbourne, New York, p. 202-203.
- ^ In this group of correspondents there were also Captain Charles Tremayne, Captain Arthur Pilkington). More details in Philip Knightley (1982), The First Casualty The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker, revised edition, London, Melbourne, New York, p. 206-208.
- ^ Philip Knightley (1982), The First Casualty The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker, revised edition, London, Melbourne, New York, p. 206-208; Luckhurst, T. (2023). Reporting the Second World War: The Press and the People 1939-1945, Bloomsbury Academic, p. 25-30.
- ^ Luckhurst, T. (2023). Reporting the Second World War: The Press and the People 1939-1945, Bloomsbury Academic, p. 29.
- ^ a b c d e Mitchell, Bill (December 9, 2002). "When a Journalist Goes to War". Archived from the original on December 17, 2015. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
- ^ a b c Hammond, William (1998). Reporting Vietnam: Media & Military at War (vol. 1). University Press of Kansas.
- ^ a b "The war without end is a war with hardly any news coverage". www.niemanwatchdog.org. Archived from the original on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2015-12-11.
- ^ ISBN 0198020864.
- ^ a b "The persian gulf war - Television". www.americanforeignrelations.com. Archived from the original on 2015-12-07. Retrieved 2015-12-11.
- ^ ISBN 0226042596.
- ^ a b "Olivier Weber". radionz.co.nz. 3 December 2016. Archived from the original on 5 March 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
- ^ "Great Conversations - Sebastian Junger and Joe Klein - Season 19". PBS.org. October 16, 2016. Retrieved April 29, 2022.
- ^ "Protection of Journalists | How does law protect in war? - Online casebook". casebook.icrc.org. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
- Stephen D. Reese, Stephen D., Oscar H. Gandy and August E. Grant. (2001). Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World, Maywah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
- War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam by Tad Bartimus. NY: Random House, 2002. ISBN 9780375506284
- On Their Own: Women Journalists and the American Experience in Vietnam by Joyce Hoffmann. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2008. on October 30, 2008
- Knightley Phillip. (2003). The First Casualty: The War Correspondent As Hero Propagandist Myth-Maker from the Crimea to the Gulf War New ed. London: Andre Deutsch.
Further reading
- Hamilton, J. M. (2011). Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting. United States: LSU Press.
- Collier, R. (1989). Fighting Words: The War Correspondents of World War Two. New York: St. Martin's.
- Knightley, P. (2004). The First Casualty: The War Correspondent As Hero and Myth-Maker From The Crimea to Iraq, United Kingdom: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Luckhurst, T. (2023). Reporting the Second World War: The Press and the People 1939-1945, Bloomsbury Academic.
External links
- War Correspondents: A Book Bibliography
- "A statistical analysis of journalists killed in Iraq since hostilities began in March 2003"
- "Covering D-Day: An Allied Journalist's Perspective" – a report written by David J. Marcou for British Heritage magazine for the 60th anniversary of D-Day
- Biographical dictionary of 24,000+ British and Irish journalists who died between 1800 and 1960