War correspondent

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Alan Wood, war correspondent for the Daily Express, types a dispatch during the battle. Arnhem, 1944.

A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories first-hand from a war zone.

War correspondents' jobs bring them 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, this is often considered the most dangerous form of 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. In contrast, the largest war in the last half of the 20th century, the Iran–Iraq War, received far less substantial coverage. This is typical for wars among less-developed countries, as audiences are less interested and the reports do little to increase sales and ratings. The lack of infrastructure makes reporting more difficult and expensive, and the conflicts are also far more dangerous for war correspondents.^[1]

History[]

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

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 Frederika Charlotte Riedesel's Letters and Journals Relating to the War of the American Revolution and the Capture of the German Troops at Saratoga is regarded as the first account of war by a woman. Her description of the events that took place in the Marshall House are particularly poignant because she was in the midst of battle.

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. Another early correspondent was William Hicks whose letters describing the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) were also published in The Times. Winston Churchill in 1899, working as a correspondent, became notorious as an escaped prisoner of war.

Early film newsreels 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 until the introduction of small, portable motion picture cameras during World War II. The situation 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.

News coverage gives combatants an opportunity 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.^[2] The continued progress of technology has allowed live coverage of events via satellite up-links and the rise of twenty-four hour news channels has led to a heightened demand for material to fill the hours.

Crimean War[]

William Howard Russell, who covered the Crimean War, also for The Times, is often described^{[by whom?]} as the first modern war correspondent.^[3] 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, Ferdinando Petruccelli della Gattina, Italian correspondent of European newspapers such as La Presse, Journal des débats, Indépendance Belge and The Daily News, was known for his extremely gory style in his articles but involving at the same time. Jules Claretie, critic of Le Figaro, was amazed about his correspondence of the Battle of Custoza, during the Third Italian War of Independence. Claretie wrote, "Nothing could be more fantastic and cruelly true than this tableau of agony. Reportage has never given a superior artwork."^[4]

Russo-Japanese War[]

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

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.^[5]

First and Second Balkan Wars[]

The First Balkan War (1912–1913) between the Balkan League (Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria) and the Ottoman Empire, and the Second Balkan War (1913) between Bulgaria and its former allies Serbia and Greece, was actively covered by a large number of foreign newspapers, news agencies, and movie companies. An estimated 200–300 war correspondents, war photographers, war artists, and war cinematographers were active during these two nearly sequential conflicts.

First World War[]

The First World War was characterized by rigid censorship. British Lord Kitchener hated reporters, and they were banned from the Front at the start of the war. But reporters such as Basil Clarke and Philip Gibbs lived as fugitives near the Front, sending back their reports. The Government eventually allowed some accredited reporters in April 1915, and this continued until the end of the war. This allowed the Government to control what they saw.

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).

Vietnam War[]

The US conflict in Vietnam saw the tools and access available to war correspondents expanded significantly. Innovations such as cheap and reliable hand-held color video cameras, and the proliferation of television sets in Western homes give Vietnam-era correspondents the ability to portray conditions on the ground more vividly and accurately than ever before. Additionally, the US Military allowed unprecedented access for journalists, with almost no restrictions on the press,^[6] unlike in previous conflicts. These factors produced military coverage the likes of which had never been seen or anticipated, with explicit coverage of the human suffering produced by the war available right in the livingrooms of everyday people.^[7]

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.^[7] Reporters from dozens of media outlets were dispatched to Vietnam, with the number of correspondents surpassing 400 at the peak of the war.^[8] Vietnam was a dangerous war for these journalists, and 68 would be killed before the conflict came to a close.^[6]

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.^[9] Unlike in older conflicts, where Allied journalism was almost universally supportive of the war effort, journalists in the Vietnam theater were often harshly critical of the US military, and painted a very bleak picture of the war.^[7] In an era where the media was already playing a significant role in domestic events such as the Civil Rights Movement, war correspondence in Vietnam would have a major impact on the American political scene. Some have argued that the conduct of war correspondents in Vietnam is to blame for the tightening of restrictions on journalists by the US in wars that followed, including the Persian Gulf war and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.^[6]

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,^[9] and prominent military leaders did not believe the United States could sustain a prolonged and heavily televised war.^[10] 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.^[10] 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.^[6]

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.^[11] 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.^[11]

These trends would continue into the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, where the pool model was replaced by a new system of embedded journalism.^[6][8][1]

Notable war correspondents[]

19th century[]

• William Hicks covered the Battle of Trafalgar for The Times (1805)
• Henry Crabb Robinson, Germany and Spain (1807–1809).
• Peter Finnerty, Walcheren Campaign (1809).
• Thomas William Bowlby, North China Campaign (1860).
• Bennet Burleigh (1840–1914), Sudan (Omdurman), Boer War, Russo-Japanese War, Italo-Turkish war
• Winston Churchill (1874–1965); covered the Siege of Malakand, the Mahdist War and the Second Boer War.
• Kit Coleman (1864–1915), female war correspondent who covered the Spanish–American War for the Toronto Mail in 1898.
• George Wingrove Cooke, Second Opium War, 1857–1858.
• Stephen Crane (1871–1900); covered the 1897 Greco-Turkish War, where he contracted tuberculosis.
• Ferdinando Petruccelli della Gattina, Expedition of the thousand, Second and Third Italian War of Independence, Paris Commune
• Richard Harding Davis (1864–1916); covered the Spanish–American War, Second Boer War and the fighting on the Macedonian front during World War I.
• John F. Finerty was a war correspondent for the Chicago Times covering the Great Sioux War of 1876–1877.
• Archibald Forbes
• Howard C. Hillegas, covered Boer Wars
• William Howard Russell covered The Crimean War (1854–1855)
• was a fighting war correspondent in The Great Sioux War of 1876–1877.
• Benjamin C. Truman
• Frederic Villiers
• Charles Frederick Williams, British journalist

20th century[]

United States World War II correspondents

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

• Kate Adie (born 1945); covered the Gulf War, Yugoslav Wars, Rwandan genocide and the Sierra Leone Civil War.
• Peter Arnett (born 1934); covered the Vietnam War, 1991 Gulf War, the 2001 Invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 Iraq War.
• Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1881–1931); covered the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.
• Ralph Barnes (1899–1940); the first war correspondent killed during World War II
• Martin Bell (born 1938); covered the Vietnam War, Biafra War, The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Angolan Civil War and the Bosnian War.
• Michael Birch (1944–1968); killed in Saigon during Tet while covering the Vietnam War.
• Bill Boss (1917–2007); Canadian war correspondent, for the Canadian Press, who covered World War II.
• Alexandra Boulat
• Margaret Bourke-White (1904–1971); first female war correspondent, photographed Buchenwald concentration camp
• Marvin Breckinridge Patterson (1905–2002); covered World War II.
• Cecil Brown
• Wilfred Burchett (1911–1983); covered the Pacific War, Korean War and Vietnam War.
• Winston Burdett
• Edgar Rice Burroughs; WWII—covered the attack on Pearl Harbor. Became one of the oldest war correspondents ever.
• Larry Burrows (1927–1971); British photojournalist famous for his work in the Vietnam War. Killed in a helicopter crash over Laos with three colleagues.
• 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).
• Peter Cave (born 1952); covered the Gulf War, Yugoslav Wars, the Coconut War in the New Hebrides, Iraq War, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Lebanon, Egypt and Libya
• Blaise Cendrars
• Patrick Chauvel
• 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.
• Gaston Chérau (Niort (France) 1872 - Boston (USA) 1937). French war correspondent and photograph for Le Matin during the Italo-Turkish war over Libya (1911-1912) and for L'Illustration at the beginning of World War I (1914-1915). See : Pierre Schill, Réveiller l’archive d’une guerre coloniale. Photographies et écrits de Gaston Chérau, correspondant de guerre lors du conflit italo-turc pour la Libye (1911-1912), Créaphis, 2018, 480p.et 230 photographies.
• 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, living as a fugitive in Dunkirk during the early part of the War and then as an accredited reporter at the Battle of the Somme in late 1916. he also covered the Eastern Front and the Easter Rising and later became the UK's first public relations officer.
• Alexander Clifford; covered World War II
• Charles Collingwood
• Marie Colvin; considered one of the most influential correspondents of past 20 years, killed in Homs, Syria.
• Anderson Cooper (born 1967); war correspondent for CNN who covered Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda.
• Tim Judah (born 1962); covered El Salvador, Romanian Revolution, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Darfur, Iraq, Ukraine.
• Burton Crane (1901–1963); covered occupied Japan after World War II and the Korean War for The New York Times.
• Walter Cronkite (1916–2009); covered the European Theater during World War II for United Press.
• Neil Davis; Australian combat cameraman covered the Vietnam War, Cambodia and Laos and subsequently conflicts in Africa. He was killed in 1985 in Thailand.
• Albert K. Dawson (1885–1967); American photographer and film correspondent with the German, Austrian and Bulgarian army during World War I
• Luc Delahaye
• Richard Dimbleby (1913–1965); covered World War II
• Frank Palmos (1940–); Vietnam War 1965–1968, Indonesian Civil War 1965–66.
• David Douglas Duncan
• Bill Downs (1914–1978); one of the "Murrow Boys" who covered the Eastern Front, the Normandy landings, and later covered the Korean War.
• Kurt Eggers (1905–1943); 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 for The New York Times in 1970–72 and wrote the book which won the National Book Award.
• Horst Faas (1933–2012); Associated Press Saigon Photographer, two Pulitzer Prices, co author "Lost Over Laos", "Requiem", "Henri Huet". Covered the Congo War, Algeria, Vietnam, Bangladesh.
• Bernard B. Fall; (1926–1967); covered the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War (where he was killed by a landmine).
• Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006); Italian journalist, author and partisan. Covered the Vietnam War, Indo-Pakistani War, Middle East, and in South America.
• Sylvana Foa; correspondent in Vietnam and Cambodia.
• 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 the U.S. invasion of Panama.
• Lothar-Günther Buchheim (1918–2007); covered Kriegsmarine patrols during the World War II, most notably the famous U-96 seventh patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic which was eventually taken as basis for the Oscar nominated movie and mini-series Das Boot ("The Boat").
• Chas Gerretsen (born 1943); covered the war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and received the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award for his coverage of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état
• Georgie Anne Geyer (born 1935); covered the Guatemalan Civil War and the Algerian Civil War.
• Philip Gibbs; Official war Correspondent for Britain during World War I.
• Nakayama Gishu^[12]
• Robert Goralski; NBC News correspondent. Covered the Vietnam War; provided witness testimony in the My Lai massacre trials.
• 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" in 2009.^[13]
• Cork Graham (born 1964); imprisoned in Vietnam for illegally entering the country while looking for treasure buried by Captain Kidd.
• Tom Grandin
• 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.
• Philip Jones Griffiths (1936–2008); British photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War.
• Vassili Grossman
• Corra Harris; early women correspondent in World War I.
• David Halberstam (1934–2007); American journalist, The New York Times. Covered the war in the Congo and the Vietnam War for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.
• Macdonald Hastings
• Max Hastings
• Vern Haugland (1908–1984); Associated Press, World War II Pacific theater, first civilian awarded Silver Star medal
• Ron Haviv
• Chris Hedges
• Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961); covered the 1922 Catastrophe of Smyrna in Turkey, the Spanish Civil War and World War II.
• Michael Herr (1940–2016); American writer for Esquire in the Vietnam War (1967–68). Book: Dispatches, Screenplay: Full Metal Jacket Voice-over narration for Apocalypse Now.
• Frank Hewlett (1913–1983); covered WW2 in the Philippines
• Marguerite Higgins; paved the way for female war correspondents.
• Johannes-Matthias Hönscheid; covered World War II, only correspondent to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
• Clare Hollingworth; covered World War II, Algerian War, Vietnam War, Bangladesh Liberation War (1971).
• Richard C. Hottelet
• Vicente Huidobro covered World War II in Europe.^[14]
• Peggy Hull (1889–1967); covered World War I and World War II
• Edwin L. James (1890–1951); covered World War I for The New York Times
• Clair Kenamore, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, early 20th century
• Joseph Kessel
• Helen Kirkpatrick (1909–1997); covered World War II including The Blitz, Normandy Invasion and Liberation of France.
• Gary Knight (born 1964); British photojournalist. Covered conflicts in: Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan war.
• Betty Knox (1906–1963); dancer with Wilson, Keppel and Betty and war correspondent for the London Evening Standard during WWII
• Tom Lea (1907–2001); Life painter and correspondent in both the European and Pacific theaters with the US Navy and the US 1st Marine Division.
• Catherine Leroy (1945–2006); French freelance photographer, covered the Vietnam War.
• Jacques Leslie; Cambodian–Vietnamese 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.^[15]
• 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. One of the "Murrow Boys".
• Jean Leune (1889–1944); and Hélène Vitivilia Leune (?–1940), French war correspondents who as a married couple covered the First Balkan War in Greece 1912–1913.
• George Lewis (NBC News); covered Vietnam War 1970–1973
• Jack London
• Jim G. Lucas; Scripps-Howard Newspapers, reported human interest stories from the front lines in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
• Alexander Gault MacGowan (1894–1970); correspondent for The Sun (New York), reported from the front lines in World War II.
• Anne O'Hare McCormick
• John MacVane
• Curzio Malaparte
• Don McCullin; British photographer. Covered conflicts in Northern Ireland, Vietnam, Biafra.
• Steve McCurry (born 1950); American photographer. Covered Cambodian Civil War, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Gulf War. Member of Magnum Photos.
• Jim McGlincy (1917–1988); United Press correspondent, covered World War II in London and the postwar conflict in French Indochina.
• Waldemar Milewicz
• Alan Moorehead; Australian reporter, covered World War II with units of General Bernard Montgomery, author of several books on the war.
• Christopher Morris
• Ralph Morse; (born 1917) covered World War II
• Joseph Morton (born in 1911 or 1913, died in 1945); Associated Press war correspondent, the first American correspondent to be executed by the enemy during World War II.
• Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965); Covered the Blitz in London and the European Theater during World War II for CBS News. Hired a team of foreign correspondents for CBS News who became known as the "Murrow Boys".
• James Nachtwey (born 1948); American photographer. Covered Northern Ireland, South Africa, Iraq, Sudan, Indonesia, India, Rwanda, Chechnya, Pakistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Romania, Afghanistan, Israel.
• Ruth Cowan Nash (1943-1945); First American woman war correspondent. Covered Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and their first deployment in Algeria.
• George Sessions Perry (1910–1956); Writer who covered WWII for Harper's Weekly and the Saturday Evening Post. Accompanied troops on invasions of Italy and France. Said after the war that his war experiences "de-fictionalized" him for life and never wrote fiction again.
• William Pidgeon (1909-1981) artist and writer, principally for The Australian Women's Weekly. He visited Darwin, Northern Territory, Papua New Guinea, Morotai and Borneo in World War II
• Robert Pierpoint
• John Pilger
• 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.
• Anna Politkovskaya
• George Polk
• Jessie Pope; was a pro war journalist and poet during the first world war.
• Ernie Pyle; Scripps-Howard Newspapers, reported human interest stories from the front lines in World War II, Pulitzer Prize, 1944. Pyle was killed by a machine gun burst on the island of Iejima in April 1945, while covering ongoing conflict on the island.
• Dan Rather; Covered Vietnam War for CBS News for several months in 1966–67.
• John Reed (1887–1920); covered the Mexican Revolution, the First World War, and the Russian Revolution, author of Ten Days that Shook the World
• John Rich (1917–2014); American journalist. Covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War for NBC News.
• Derek Round (1935–2012); Covered the Vietnam War.
• Joe Sacco; comics artist who covered the Gulf War and Bosnian War
• Morley Safer; Covered Vietnam War for CBS News in 1965 and made documentary film, Morley Safer's Vietnam.
• Sydney Schanberg; his experiences in Cambodia during the Vietnam War are dramatized in The Killing Fields
• Peter Scholl-Latour (1922–2014); German journalist who covered conflicts in Africa and Asia, Algeria, Vietnam, Angola, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Cambodia, etc. Author of 30 books.
• Kurt Schork
• Sigrid Schultz
• Eric Sevareid
• Bill Shadel
• Charles Shaw
• Robert Sherrod; World War II, Pacific theatre, Guadacanal and Tarawa/Saipan
• William L. Shirer; Covered WWII for CBS News, one of the "Murrow Boys", and the author of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", a scholarly history.
• Howard K. Smith
• Vaughan Smith (born 1963); British cameraman, covered Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosova, Gulf War.
• John Steinbeck
• Karsten Thielker (born 1966); German photojournalist. Covered Rwanda Genocide, Kosovo. 1995 Pulitzer Prize.
• Richard Tregaskis; author of Guadalcanal Diary, dramatized in movie of same name.
• Aernout van Lynden
• Betty Wason
• Kate Webb (1943–2007); covered the Vietnam and Cambodian wars for UPI; captured by the North Vietnamese in Cambodia in 1971 and held for three weeks; covered East Timor war. Later Gulf War, Indonesia, Afghanistan for AFP.
• Osmar White
• Eric Lloyd Williams
• Chester Wilmot
• Paul Wood; BBC defense correspondent in the Middle East covering the Arab World since 2003.
• Simon Dring; British correspondent for Reuters, London Daily Telegraph, BBC-TV News; covered wars/revolutions in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Biafra, Cyprus, Angola, Eritrea, India-Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Bosnia, Middle East.

21st century[]

• Martin Adler (1958–2006) Swedish video journalist, killed in Mogadishu, Somalia. Covered the Gulf War, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone.
• Christiane Amanpour covered the Gulf War and the Bosnian War
• Jon Lee Anderson covered the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Uganda, Israel, El Salvador, Ireland, Lebanon and Iran.
• Janine di Giovanni (1990–present) reported wars in Bosnia, Africa, the Middle East and, more recently, Syria.
• Andrew Beatty, embedded for AFP during the 2011 Libyan Civil War and fired upon during the 2012 Benghazi attack
• Ben Brown covered the Gulf War
• Mile Cărpenişan (born August 23, 1975 – died March 22, 2010) covered the Iraq War and Kosovo war
• Mstyslav Chernov (Associated Press), covered the War in Donbass, Civil War in Syria, and US military operations in Iraq.
• Marie Colvin (1956–2012) American UPI after Sunday Times journalist. Covering the conflict in Syria, Marie was killed in Homs. Covered conflicts in Sierra Leone, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Libya
• Dan Eldon (1970–1993) British photojournalist. Killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, by an angry mob while covering the Battle of Mogadishu
• Richard Engel (born 1973), American who covered the Iraq War, the 2006 Lebanon War and the Syrian civil war (during which he was kidnapped but subsequently rescued)
• Dexter Filkins (born 1961), covered wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syrian
• Robert Fisk (1946–2020), British journalist, covered Northern Ireland conflict, Algerian Civil War, Beirut, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Lebanese Civil War, Iranian Revolution, Iran–Iraq War, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Kosovo War and the 2003 Iraq War.
• Aziz Ullah Haidari (1968 – November 19, 2001); covered the Afghanistan war,
• Michael Hastings (1980–2013) covered the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War
• Tim Hetherington (1970–2011) British Photographer and documentary filmmaker, covered Afghanistan, Liberia and was killed in Libya.
• Chris Hondros (1970–2011) American photographer, covered conflicts in Liberia, Angola, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and was killed in Misrata, Libya, in 2011.
• Gilles Jacquier (1968–2012) French cameraman for France 2 Television. He was the first reporter killed in Syrian Civil War.
• Wojciech Jagielski
• Sebastian Junger, American Journalist and documentary filmmaker, covered conflicts in Bosnia and Afghanistan,
• Ryszard Kapuściński
• Joseph Kessel
• Rick Leventhal (born 1960) covered the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya
• Terry Lloyd (1952–2003), British television journalist, covered the Middle East. He was killed by U.S. troops while covering the 2003 invasion of Iraq for ITN.
• Anthony Loyd (born 1966) covered Bosnia and Chechnya
• Karen Maron
• Kenji Nagai (1957–2007) Japanese photographer. Covered Afghanistan War. Kenji was killed in Yangon, Burma.
• Remy Ourdan
• Iain Overton, who has written two books on conflict. Gun Baby Gun looks at gun violence. And The Price of Paradise, which examines the role of suicide bombers in the modern age.
• Robert Young Pelton, best known for his 1,000+ page guide to warzones and survival, The World's Most Dangerous Places.
• Arturo Pérez-Reverte, worked for Pueblo newspaper and Spanish TVE. Covered the Bosnian War among others
• Antonia Rados (born 1953) Austrian TV correspondent for ORF, WDR, ZDF, RTL. Covered conflicts in the Gulf War, Kosovo
• Nir Rosen; covered the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
• Giuliana Sgrena
• Anthony Shadid (1968-2012) covered Iraq war, Arab spring. Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting 2004 & 2009.
• John Simpson
• Kevin Sites
• Daniel Wakefield Smith
• Michael Ware (born 1969); ongoing coverage of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Reporting from the perspectives of all combatant groups.
• Olivier Weber covered the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan (2001–present), in Israel, Iran, Eritrea, Algeria, Pakistan and a dozen other conflicts.
• Mika Yamamoto (1967–2012) Japanese photographer and TV journalist. Killed on August 20, 2012, in Aleppo, while covering the Syrian Civil War
• Michael Yon (born 1964); former Green Beret, turned journalist and author. Embedded with American, British and Lithuanian combat units in Iraq War
• (born 1962) Turkish senior war correspondent; covered the Soviet-Afghan War from 1987 for six years onwards, as well as the Gulf Wars and more-recent conflicts in the Middle East for CNN Türk.

Books by war correspondents[]

• Tolstoy, Leo (1855). Sevastopol Sketches.
• Hemingway, Ernest(1929). A Farewell to Arms
• Herr, Michael (1978). Dispatches. Knopf. OCLC 3732647. Previous ed. also available.
• Weber, Olivier (2002). Afghan Eternities. Le Chene/UNESCO (with Reza).
• Hedges, Chris (2002). War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. PublicAffairs. ISBN 1-58648-049-9.
• Filkins, Dexter (2008). The Forever War. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780307266392. OCLC 213407458.
• Junger, Sebastian (2010). War

See also[]

• Breathing (memorial sculpture)
• Embedded journalism
• List of foreign correspondents in the Spanish Civil War
• Military journalism
• Peace journalism
• Press pool
• Journalists of the Balkan Wars
• War correspondents 1942–1943
• Headline Hunters, a 1945 newsreel short about Canadian WWII 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, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 978-0-8058-3653-0; OCLC 46383772
• 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. ISBN 9780306810596; see Author Interview at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library on October 30, 2008

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to War correspondents.

• 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