Chamblee54

Palestinian Pundit links to a fine story, Robert Fisk: The heroic myth and the uncomfortable truth of war reporting. There is an old saying … in wars, the first casualty is the truth. Stories for the home front are a key part of the war effort. The government often sees war reporters as being a part of the propaganda offensive, and many play along. Mr. Fisk has been playing the game for many years, and has a few stories to tell.
“The flak jacket has now become the symbol of almost every television reporter at war. I’ve nothing against flak jackets. I wore one in Bosnia. But I’ve been increasingly discomfited by all these reporters in their blue space-suits, standing among and interviewing the victims of war, who have no such protection. I know that insurers insist correspondents and crews wear this stuff. But on the streets, a different impression emerges: that the lives of Western reporters are somehow more precious, more deserving, more inherently valuable than those of the “foreign” civilians who suffer around them.”
Not only western reporters, but the western soldiers and mercenaries as well. There is something ugly about an advanced society going into a backwards country to kill people. In Vietnam, we had  B52s raining napalm on peasants living in bamboo shacks. In Pakistan, we have unmanned aircraft slaughtering helpless women and children.
In the old days, soldiers marched into battle, protected only by their weapon. Now, they move in armored vehicles, which they exit leave wearing body armor. The hosts are left to struggle as best they can… with i.e.d.s and suicide bombers. The blood of the people is the weapon of mass destruction.
“A similar and equally uncomfortable phenomenon appeared 15 years ago. How did reporters “cope” with war? Should they receive “counselling” for their terrible experiences? Should they seek “closure”? The Press Gazette called me up for a comment. I declined the offer. The subsequent article went on and on about the traumas suffered by journalists – and then suggested that those who declined psychological “help” were alcoholics. It was either psycho-babble or the gin bottle. The terrible truth, of course, is that journos – and for God’s sake, we must stop demeaning our profession by calling ourselves “hacks” – can fly home if the going gets too tough, business class with a glass of bubbly in their hands. The poor, flak-jacketless people they leave behind – with pariah passports, no foreign visas, desperately trying to stop the blood splashing on to their vulnerable families – are the ones who need “help”.
“Yes, all honour to those who reported from Homs. But here’s a thought: when the Israelis unleashed their cruel bombardment of Gaza in 2008, they banned all reporters from the war, just as the Syrians tried to do in Homs. And the Israelis were much more successful in preventing us Westerners from seeing the subsequent bloodbath. Hamas forces and the “Free Syria Army” in Homs actually have a lot in common – both were increasingly Islamist, both faced infinitely superior firepower, both lost the battle – but it was left to Palestinian reporters to cover their own people’s suffering. They did a fine job. Funny, though, that the newsrooms of London and Washington didn’t have quite the same enthusiasm to get their folk into Gaza as they did to get them into Homs. Just a thought. A very unhappy one.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress .