War is perhaps one the earliest occurrences of human civilization.
We know this because people told us. Only slightly younger than war is the war story, the tales of valor, pain, fear, courage and sacrifice.
These tales are told to the general public by war correspondents, men and women who decide to risk their lives by entering combat zones armed not with guns and bullets, but with pencils and pads.
Modern war correspondents really began in the Crimean War. Fought in what was then the Turkish Empire in the 1850s, the war was reported on by what is arguably the first modern war correspondent, William Russell. Russell, a reporter for The London Times, covered the battles, and perhaps more importantly, used photography as well as words. His coverage of the wounded inspired English nurse Florence Nightingale to organize and reform the way that military hospitals were run.
During the American Civil War, newspapermen followed both Confederate and Union armies throughout the country, using photography, engravings, and articles to inform the public. Regiments on both sides loved to read features about themselves, often laughing at the inaccuracies in the reporting. The accuracy in troop movements and deployments in the articles worried the generals, however. General Sherman considered spies and reporters to be one in the same. Few things were more highly prized in Confederate headquarters than the latest copy of the Harper’s Weekly or Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.
In 1896, a monument was dedicated to the memory of 157 journalists, photographers, and artists who covered the war for newspapers. The marble arch is located near Burkittsville, Md.
In World War One, war correspondents covered the horrors of trench warfare, and featured in print such new inventions as the tank.
World War Two was the coming of age, really, for war correspondents. Perhaps the most famous correspondent was Ernie Pyle. Pyle was managing editor for the Washington Daily News, and went to Europe to cover the war in 1940. When America entered the war, Pyle covered the American advances through North Africa, Italy, and France. Living with the soldiers, Pyle knew intimately what it was like for the common GI serving Uncle Sam. When the war in Europe was drawing to a close, Pyle went to the Pacific. It was there, on April 18, 1945, that Ernie Pyle was killed.
In 1950, the Korean War was front-page news. Through the 50s, war correspondents brought the struggle against the Chinese to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Q. Public.
The war, though, that truly changed the way that wars were covered was the Vietnam War. With the advent of television news, and the simple fact that most people had them now, footage of American boys being killed in combat demoralized and frightened the American war effort. The US government could not bolster public support for the war, not when Americans were seeing it, up close and in color, on the evening news.
Vietnam taught the military that the press could not be allowed to cover wars close up anymore. Twenty years later, in the Gulf War, correspondents like Wolf Blitzer reported from miles away, and only what the Defense Department told CNN and other news agencies.
Now, as America faces a new war, the way it will be covered is up to the Defense Department. Only in the future, when historians look back on this war, will we know how wise that decision was.
