War correspondent

A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.

Methods

Their jobs require war correspondents to deliberately go to 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. Thus, being a war correspondent is often considered the most dangerous form of journalism. On the other hand, war coverage is also one of the most successful branches of journalism. Newspaper sales increase greatly in wartime and television news ratings go up. News organizations have sometimes been accused of warmongering because of the advantages they gather from conflict. William Randolph Hearst is often said to have encouraged the Spanish-American War for this reason. (See Yellow journalism)

Only some conflicts receive extensive worldwide coverage, however. Among recent wars, the Kosovo War received a great deal of coverage, as did the Persian Gulf War. Many third-world wars, however, tend to receive less substantial coverage because corporate media are often less interested, the lack of infrastructure makes reporting more difficult and expensive, and the conflicts are also far more dangerous for war correspondents.

History

Battle council on the De Zeven Provinciën by Willem van de Velde the Elder. The prelude to the Four Days Battle in 1666.

Written war correspondents have existed as long as journalism. Before modern journalism it was more common for longer histories to be written at the end of a conflict. The first known of these is Herodotus's account of the Persian Wars, however he did not himself participate in the events. Thucydides, who some years later wrote a history of the Peloponnesian Wars was an observer to the events he described.

The first modern war correspondent is said to be Dutch painter Willem van de Velde, who in 1653 took to sea in a small boat to observe a naval battle between the Dutch and the English, of which he made many sketches on the spot, which he later developed into one big drawing that he added to a report he wrote to the States General. A further modernization came with the development of newspapers and magazines . One of the earliest war correspondents was Henry Crabb Robinson, who covered Napoleon's campaigns in Spain and Germany for The Times of London.

Crimean War

William Howard Russell, who covered the Crimean War, also for The Times, is often described as the first modern war correspondent. 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.

Russo-Japanese War

Western military attachés and war correspondents with the Japanese forces after the Battle of Shaho in 1904.

Main article: Military attachés and observers in the Russo-Japanese War

It was not until the telegraph was developed that reports could be sent on a daily basis and events could be reported as they occurred that the short mainly descriptive stories of 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.

First World War

Main article: Military attachés and war correspondents in the First World War

The First World War was the first modern mediated war in the sense that warfare becomes conflicts and controversies between parties who exchange information and arguments indirectly by the mass media and their special correspondents reporting from the front lines of warfare. The discourse in mediated conflicts is influenced by its public character. By forwarding information and arguments to the media, conflict parties attempt to gain support from their constituencies and persuade their opponents.

The continued progress of technology has allowed live coverage of events via satellite up-links. The rise of twenty-four hour news channels has led to a heightened demand for coverage.

Early film and television news rarely had war correspondents. Rather they would simply collect footage provided by other sources, often the government, and the news anchor would then add narration. This footage was often staged as cameras were large and bulky. This changed dramatically with the Vietnam War when networks from around the world sent cameramen with portable cameras and correspondents. This proved damaging to the United States as the full brutality of war became a daily feature on the nightly news.

Notable war correspondents

Some of them became authors of fiction drawing on their war experiences, including Davis, Crane and Hemingway.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

19th century

• Kit Coleman first female war correspondent
• George Wingrove Cooke, Second Opium War, 1857-1858.
• Thomas Bowlby, North China Campaign 1860.
• Archibald Forbes
• Stephen Crane (1871–1900); covered the 1897 Greco-Turkish War, where he contracted tuberculosis.
• Howard C. Hillegas, covered Boer Wars
• William Howard Russell
• Frederic Villiers
• Benjamin C. Truman

20th century

• Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1881–1931); covered the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.
• Alexandra Boulat
• Philip Gibbs; Official war Correspondent for Britain during the First World War.
• Bill Boss (1917–2007) Canadian war correspondent, for the Canadian Press, who covered World War II
• Margaret Bourke-White (1904–1971); first female war correspondent, photographed Buchenwald concentration camp
• Mary Marvin Breckinridge (1905–2002); covered World War II.
• Wilfred Burchett (1911–1983); covered the Pacific War, Korean War and Vietnam War. He was known for covering news from the "other side" of the battlefield, and was often criticised of being a communist sympathiser.
• Larry Burrows
• Robert Capa (1913–1954); covered the Spanish Civil War, Second Sino-Japanese War, the European Theatre of World War II and the First Indochina War (where he was killed by a landmine).
• Dickey Chapelle (1918–1965); covered the Pacific War, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Vietnam War (where she was killed by a landmine). She was the first female US war correspondent to be killed in action.
• Greg Clarke (1892–1977) Canadian war correspondent who covered World War I and II.
• Basil Clarke (1879–1947); covered the fighting on the Western Front during WWI.
• Alexander Clifford, covered World War II
• Burton Crane (1901–1963); covered occupied Japan after World War II and the Korean War for the New York Times.
• Neil Davis - Australian combat cameraman covered the Vietnam War, Cambodia and Laos and subsequently conflicts in Africa.
• Albert K. Dawson (1885–1967); American photographer and film correspondent with the German, Austrian and Bulgarian army during the First World War
• Luc Delahaye
• Richard Dimbleby (1913–1965); covered World War II
• David Douglas Duncan
• Kurt Eggers (-1943) World War II SS correspondent, editor of the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps, was killed while reporting on the Wiking's battles near Kharkov. The German SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers was named in his honor.
• Gloria Emerson (1929–2004); covered the Vietnam War.
• Bernard B. Fall (1926–1967); covered the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War (where he was killed by a landmine).
• J.C. Furnas; covered World War II.
• Joseph L. Galloway (born November 13, 1941), UPI correspondent in Vietnam and co-author of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young.
• Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998); covered the Spanish Civil War, World War II, Vietnam War, the Six-Day War and even the U.S. invasion of Panama.
• Georgie Anne Geyer (born 1935); covered the Guatemalan Civil War and the Algerian Civil War.
• George Sessions Perry (1910–1956) Covered WWII for Harper's Weekly and Saturday Evening Post. He accompanied troops on the invasions of Italy and France. Said after the war that his war experiences "de-fictionalized" him for life, and he never wrote fiction again.
• Al Gore (born 1948); covered the Vietnam War.
• Henry Tilton Gorrell (1911–1958); United Press correspondent. Covered the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Author of "Soldier of the Press, Covering the Front in Europe and North Africa, 1936-1943" published by the University of Missouri Press, 2009.
• Cork Graham (born 1964); imprisoned in Vietnam for illegally entering the country while looking for treasure buried by Captain Kidd.
• Louis Grondijs (1878–1961); covered Russo-Japanese War, World War I, the Russian Civil War, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Spanish Civil War.
• Corra Harris early women correspondent in World War I.
• David Halberstam
• Macdonald Hastings
• Max Hastings
• Ron Haviv
• Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961); covered the Spanish Civil War
• Michael Herr
• Marguerite Higgins; paved the way for female war correspondents.
• Clare Hollingworth covered World War II, Algerian War, Vietnam War
• Philip Jones Griffiths
• Gary Knight
• Larry LeSueur, CBS radio correspondent, reported from rooftops during World War II London blitzes, went ashore in the first waves of the D-Day invasion, and broadcast to America the Allied liberation of Paris.
• Jim G. Lucas, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, reported human interest stories from the front lines in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
• Anne O'Hare McCormick
• Don McCullin
• Alan Moorehead, covered World War II
• Christopher Morris
• Ralph Morse, (born 1917) covered World War II
• Edward R. Murrow
• James Nachtwey
• Nakayama Gishu
• Roy Pinney (1911–2010) covered World War II and was present at the Normandy landing on D-Day for the Normandy Invasion. He also covered the Yom Kippur War in the Gaza Strip and conflicts in Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Africa and Colombia.
• Ernie Pyle
• Yvonne Ridley
• Joe Rosenthal, received the Pulitzer Prize for his iconic World War II photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
• John Sack
• Sydney Schanberg, his experiences in Cambodia during the Vietnam War are dramatized in The Killing Fields
• Sigrid Schultz

Robert Sherrod, WW II, Pacific theatre, Guadacanal and Tarawa/Saipan

• William L. Shirer
• Richard Tregaskis, author of Guadalcanal Diary, dramatized in movie of same name.
• Osmar White
• Eric Lloyd Williams
• Chester Wilmot
• Sylvana Foa, correspondent in Vietnam and Cambodia

21st century

• Richard Engel; covered the Iraq War and the 2006 Lebanon War.
• Lara Logan
• Kevin Sites
• Nir Rosen; covered the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan (2001-present).
• Dexter Filikins covered the Iraq War.
• Jason Feldman covered the Iraq War.

General

• Kate Adie (born 1945); covered the Gulf War, Yugoslav Wars, Rwandan Genocide and the Sierra Leone Civil War.
• Christiane Amanpour (born 1958); covered the Gulf War and the Bosnian War.
• Peter Arnett (born 1934); covered the Vietnam War, 1991 Gulf War, the 2001 Invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 Iraq War.
• Martin Bell (born 1938); covered the Vietnam War, Biafra War, The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Angolan Civil War and the Bosnian War.
• Mile Cărpenişan (born August 23, 1975 – died March 22, 2010) covered the Iraq war and Kosovo war
• Peter Cave (born 1952); covered the Gulf War, Yugoslav Wars, the Coconut War in the New Hebrides , Iraq War, Tiananmen Square , Lebanon , Egypt and Libya
• Winston Churchill (1874–1965); covered the Siege of Malakand, the Mahdist War and the Second Boer War.
• Richard Harding Davis (1864–1916); covered the Spanish-American War, Second Boer War and the fighting on the Macedonian front during World War I.
• Lady Florence Dixie (1855–1905); covered the First Boer War

Anderson Cooper, at age of 42, a renowned War correspondent serving CNN.

• Roy Pinney (born 1911) covered World War II and was present at the Normandy landing on D-Day for the Normandy Invasion. He also covered the Yom Kippur War in the Gaza Strip and conflicts in Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Africa and Colombia. Among the approximately 500 war correspondents covering the Normandy Invasion Roy Pinney is the oldest living survivor. Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes fame is also among the oldest survivors.
• Robert Fisk (born 1946); covered the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian Revolution, Iran–Iraq War, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Algerian Civil War, Kosovo War and the 2003 Iraq War.
• Peggy Hull (1889–1967) covered Mexican-American War, World War I and World War II
• Ryszard Kapuściński
• Helen Kirkpatrick (1909–1997) covered World War II including The Blitz, Normandy Invasion and Liberation of France.
• George Lewis NBC News Vietnam War 1970-1973
• Terry Lloyd
• Anthony Loyd
• Karen Maron
• Waldemar Milewicz
• Kenji Nagai
• Arturo Pérez-Reverte, worked for Pueblo newspaper and Spanish TVE. Covered the Bosnian War among others.
• Robert Young Pelton Best known for his 1000+ page guide to warzones and survival, The World's Most Dangerous Places.
• John Pilger
• Dan Rather
• Anna Politkovskaya
• Joe Sacco comics artist who covered the Gulf War and Bosnian War
• Morley Safer
• Chris Hedges
• Kurt Schork
• Sylvester "Harry" Scovell influential yellow journalist in Spanish-American War
• Giuliana Sgrena
• John Simpson
• Daniel Smith
• Michael Ware (born 1969); ongoing coverage of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Reporting from the perspectives of all combatant groups.
• Trevor Watson (born 1953, Sydney, Australia) the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Cambodia, military rebellion in Fiji, Tiananmen Square
• Kate Webb
• Rod Williams Hall of Fame broadcaster covered Vietnam War
• Michael Yon (born 1964); Former Green Beret, turned journalist and author. Embedded with American, British and Lithuanian combat units in Iraq War and Afghanistan War.
• Jacques Leslie, Vietnam and Cambodia War correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, 1972–1973, 1975. Leslie was the first American journalist to enter and return from Viet Cong (National Liberation Front) territory in South Vietnam, in January 1973.

Books by war correspondents

• The Secret Life of War by Peter Beaumont
• "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" by Chris Hedges
• Anyone Here Been Raped and Speaks English by Edward Behr
• The Face of War by Martha Gellhorn
• "Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World" by Nir Rosen
• Dispatches by Michael Herr
• The Soccer War by Ryszard Kapuściński
• "A Small Corner of Hell:Dispatches from Chechnya" by Anna Politkovskaya
• "The Forever War" by Dexter Filkins
• Generation Kill by Evan Wright
• "My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath" by Seymour Hersh
• "The Massacre at El Mozote" by Mark Danner
• "Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War" by Ed Vulliamy
• My War Gone By, I Miss It So by Anthony Loyd
• Unreasonable Behaviour: An Autobiography by Don McCullin
• Soldier of the Press: Covering the Front in Europe and North Africa, 1936-1943 by Henry T. Gorrell
• Dispatches from War, memoirs" by Anderson Cooper
• "The Mark: A War Correspondent's Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia" by Jacques Leslie
• "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" by Philip Gourevitch

See also

• Breathing (memorial sculpture)
• Embedded journalism
• List of foreign correspondents in the Spanish Civil War
• Military journalism
• Press pool
• War correspondents 1942–1943
• Category:War correspondents

References

• 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, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. 10-ISBN 0-805-83653-5; 13-ISBN 978-0-805-83653-0; OCLC 46383772

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's website, for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, dealing with media coverage of the Normandy Landings, on and/or around June 6, 1944.]
• Biographical dictionary of 24,000+ British and Irish journalists who died between 1800 and 1960