Distilling the truth

We heard a lot about embedded journalists when the US and UK sent troops to Iraq. We haven't heard much about the role and experience of journalists currently dodging the missiles in the Lebanon and Northern Israel. So turning yet again to the Press Gazette, I found this article by CNN's Nic Robertson to be an interesting if brief account.

In the penultimate paragraph he describes his role as distilling the truth from the different messages that come from both sides of a conflict. OK you might think - he's a reporter defending the role of the media so he would say that wouldn't he?

But truth, as Hiram Johnson (who he?) (look it up!) once said, is the first casualty of war, so fair play to correspondents who do try to provide a lucid picture in the fog of violence and propaganda.


Filed under:
war reporting    Middle East    press freedom    Press Gazette    CNN