On The War Correspondent

It has been 200 years since war correspondents made their debut in Europe at the early stageof the 19th century. The development of the war correspondents comes along with that ofjournalism in modern history and that of the wars in the past 200 years. However, thedevelopment of war correspondents is also different from that of journalism and that of thewars. Any serious discussion of modern journalism and the wars of the past 200 years willinevitably touch on the topic of war correspondents. Reversely, when we are devotingourselves to things about war correspondents we can recognize and master lots of knowledgeof the news and war history that we have ever overlooked in our previous study.The books of the war correspondents, mainly made up of their own diary and reminiscences,were published no long after war correspondents appeared. Among them are diaries ,memosand letters of Henry Crabb Robinson and autobiography of William Howard Russell。As far aswe know from the materials in hand, the study and record of the war correspondents done byother people didn't start until the mid-20th Century. But in the following 50 years, a largenumber of books concerning the war correspondents had been published in a galloping speedand reached an amazing level.The war correspondents first appeared in China later in time than their Western counterparts.However, it appeared immediately after the setting up of the modern press in China. Thismeans, war correspondent always co-exists with journalism as a special kind of journalist. Inthe late 19th century, China had been going into a catastrophic time;the invasion was notinterrupted in this time. This set the historical scenarios of the naissance of Chinese warcorrespondent objectively. In china, we still don't know who was the first war correspondentso far. However, after the Xinhai Revolution and the first civil war, the image of warcorrespondent became clear gradually. Since the first civil war, many outstanding Chinese warcorrespondents had emerged. During the period of Anti-Japan invasion and second civil war,many newspapers of the Communist Part of China (CPC) were equipped with warcorrespondents. These war correspondents were the particular one;they marched along withthe army with pen in one hand, gun in the other. Their mission was to reveal the cruel policyof their enemy and preach the good policy of their side. What they had done formed a newimage of early Chinese war correspondent. It was fated that Chinese war correspondents hadtheir own characteristics at the very beginning.In the past, there was no monograph about war correspondents in China except for somescrappy writings among some books. Until the late 20th century, one or two monographsabout war correspondents appeared in China. People were not familiar about warcorrespondents at that time. In the wars taken place in the end of last century, Chinesetelevision media begun to send their own war correspondents to the battlefield. This attractedmany people. The Iraq War made the issue of war correspondent a focus of the Chinesejournalism, as well as a big event of it. However, all of these are not caused by the excellentperformance of our war correspondents that we sent to, but caused by the withdrawing of thewar correspondents before the war broke up. After the female journalist of Phoenix TV wentinto the dangerous battlefield, the concern and discussion about war correspondents werequickly getting hot. The theme of the discussion actually surpassed the journalist herself;however, it has reached the high level of social spirit, morality and ethics. All these storieshappened in the media, especially happened in the virtual world of the Internet. However,compared to the intense discussion of the Internet, the academic circles still kept quiet. Allthis shows the imbalance of disputation about the rationality and sense in China. In otherwords, this is a satirical drawing to Chinese academic circles. Therefore, the research of thewar correspondents in this condition can be of very important meaning both in theory and inreality.As a matter of fact, the topic for this thesis was picked up in early 2002. Iraq war of 2003 notonly proves the significance of this thesis, but also provides particular example for it.Therefore, the thesis passed the defense meeting smoothly held soon after the war.The thesis is entitled War Correspondents. It seems big and empty but in fact it engages themost controversial and meaningful issues such as the definition, history, professional qualitiesof war correspondents. It may turn out some conductive ideas and thoughts on theperformance of Chinese war correspondents and the reason why there are no world famousChinese war correspondents, which should be well thought by the academic articles as well asjournalism.There are 6 chapters in my paper. The following are the structure and the contents:Chapter 1: "What kind of correspondent is the war correspondent?" The reason for writingthis chapter is the misunderstanding of war correspondent during Iraq War in home media'sopinion. With the analysis of war, battlefield, correspondent, I illustrate how to identify thewar correspondent. In my opinion, the more distributed definition of war correspondent is thecorrespondent who is sent to battlefield, enemy's rear area, and the headquarters of one side,in order to get the first-hand information, and interview someone, report the news, events,topic related to the war. The key definition of war correspondent is that he or she must enterthe key battlefield or the frontline of battleground.Chapter 2: "The earliest war correspondent at home and abroad". There are two parts in thischapter. The first one is to analyze who was the first war correspondent in the world. With thefull and accurate historical data, and the well-knit grounds of argument, I repudiate thenot-correct, not-accurate understanding of war correspondent in history world and society. Atthe same time, I explain the reason of this judgment: Henry Crabb Robinson is the first warcorrespondent in the world. I try to find out who was the first Chinese war correspondent inthe second part. Although there is not enough evidence to prove who the first warcorrespondent was, I researched the history of war correspondent in early Chinasystematically. This is the first time to bring Chinese war correspondent to the research of warcorrespondent history.Chapter 3: "The qualities that a war correspondent must have." This question looks like it hasextended the title. Actually, it is the continual argument of Chinese war correspondent thatoccurred during and after Iraq war. In my view, there are 5 qualities that a war correspondentmust have: not fear death, not fear hardship, not fear pressure, not tell la lie as well as havinggood ability. I quoted lots of examples to explain the necessity of these qualities. This chapteris the key chapter in my paper and I have paid much attention to it, especially referring to "notfear death". I combine current situation and realistic problems with theory. This reflects therealistic meaning of my paper.Chapter 4: "Protecting war correspondent: the inescapable responsibility of internationalcommunity." In this chapter, I put forward a question that cannot be solved well in the warcorrespondent history: how to protect war correspondent? My suggestions are: "to raise theconsciousness, responsibility, duty of protecting war correspondent of all parts involved inwar";"to improve international treaty on the protection of war correspondents";"tostrengthen the sense and measures of self-protection", especially, I reviewed HagueConventions, Geneva Convention, and point out their weak spots, and boldly propose to signthe new correlative international treaty and file.Chapter 5: "Truth or national interest, which is more important?" This chapter is mainly toanalyze two questions which are not solved well in the history of western's war report. Theyare the conflicts between the truth and national interest, between press circles and military andgovernment. I think these conflicts are irreconcilable, besides, I point out the decisiveinfluence on these conflicts: the rule of the news truthfulness and nature of war. Finally, Imainly answer the question "Truth or national interest, which is more important during thewar?"Chapter 6: "Why there is no world famous war correspondent in today's China?" Thisquestion also comes from the Chinese war correspondent's not satisfying performance duringthe Iraq War. I admit that there is no world famous war correspondent and try to find out thereasons for this phenomenon. They are "history sequelae", "battlefield limit to Chinese warcorrespondent "lacking heroism" "not supporting regime";"wrong sense of media'sadministrative personnel";" not correctly changing Chinese war correspondent's image";"notenough good professional qualities compared to Western correspondents";"the developingChinese media" and so on. All above answer the very question systematically andcomprehensively. With reference to the wrong notion of some media's administrativepersonnel, I criticize their wrong opinions and negative behaviors. In the end, I put forwardsome proposals to solve this problem" how to have world famous Chinese warcorrespondent?"In this paper, I try my best to reach the right proposition, the tight demonstration, thecombination between history and reality, the demonstration and narration, as well as toencourage healthy trends, criticize diseases of society. All I have done is to reflect thetheoretical and realistic meanings of war correspondent research.