Killing the Messenger: Journalists at Risk in Modern Warfare

*Starred Review* As the conventional warfare of the two world wars has evolved to more urban warfare with no clear front lines, war correspondents have gone from observers to "collateral casualties" to targets. Foerstel, who has written extensively on free press issues, examines the reasons for the changes in warfare, the impact on war reporting, and the corresponding effect on providing perspective on international conflicts. He begins with a historical perspective and famous reporters (Ernie Pyle, Edward R. Murrow) and moves on to examine the forces that have endangered reporters, including Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002. In their own words, reporters, including Terry Anderson, held captive for six years in Beirut, describe the harrowing dangers facing war correspondents--from suspicion of spying by all sides to the risk of being kidnapped and killed. Reporters weigh the merits of embedding, and the risk of identifying too strongly with the U.S. military, against the danger of independence, even with the help of drivers, translators, and fixers. This is an impressive and thoroughly engrossing look at the perils of reporting on modern warfare.





Killing the Messenger reveals the dangerous new face of war and journalism. Covering armed conflicts has always been dangerous business, but in the past, press heroes like Ernie Pyle and Edward R. Murrow faced only the danger of random bullets or bombs. Today's war correspondent is actually in the cross hairs, a target of combatants on all sides of conflicts. In this book, correspondents describe the new dangers they face, and attempt to explain why they are targeted. Is it simply that modern combatants are more brutal than in the past, or has journalism changed, making correspondents players, rather than observers, in modern warfare? Extended interviews with correspondents who have been abducted and tortured during Middle East conflicts shed chilling light on this new face of war. These journalists, who have paid dearly to bring first-hand images of war to the public, offer some surprising insights into the nature and motivation of their kidnappers, and the reasons why reporters are targeted. They display no self-pity and little inclination to blame anyone other than themselves. At the same time, they are candid in describing the violence within Iraq and without. Ways to reduce the risks for reporters are discussed, but these editors and correspondents suggest that, short of withdrawing into isolated and protected enclaves, they may be facing an indefinite escalation of violence against journalists.



176 pages

Publisher: Praeger Publishers (March 30, 2006)

Language: English