The days of the independent, neutral war correspondent, objectively reporting from a war's front lines, are quickly coming to an end. In the future, a war correspondent will either effectively be a soldier for one faction of a conflict, or he will literally not survive in the war zone. Full Story »
Posted by Benjamin Buttons
An interesting piece of analysis of the changing role and requirements of war reporting. The author, a former soldier, sees journalists necessarily "choosing sides" just in order to stay alive while reporting on a war. This is due to the fact that combatants have realized how important is information flow, and controlling it is now a big part of waging war. As the author puts it, "Whether they like or not, journalists are in the army now." Pretty chilling thought that necessarily calls into question our received notions of journalism.
