The courage of journalists

[hollydolly]

I think I was able to act because it was a child. I have often thought if he really was a cop he would have called for a patrol car and I would have been arrested so he was probably a pervert with a fake badge.

...absolutely and what a fast thinker you were at the time. I wonder tho' and I'm sure you have, if he went on to molest or abduct another child..

 

[Jules]

The real brave people are the people on TikTok that are live/unfiltered video fo what is happening when it is actually happening.

Some. And there are many phoney videos, because they make money. The ‘reporters’ wearing army fatigues or ragged stories to make the scenes look real while playing old video footage from other wars. There is huge IT demand for professionals to expose these ‘reporters’. It’s not easy.

 

[Jules]

There’s so much competition to be the first source on a hot story, I almost understand why main stream media does it. They’re paying salaries, etc…

 

[Warrigal]

Interesting thread. It brought to mind one of Australia's early and most influential war correspondents. Keith Murdoch, later Sir Keith, spent four days on the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915 and was appalled by the hopelessness of the campaign and the conditions being endured by the men.

He wrote a 25 page letter to the Australian prime minister that was instrumental in ending the campaign in 1916.

Sir Keith was the father of Rupert Murdoch. No further comment there.

Keith Murdoch, The Gallipoli Letter 1915​

Inscription Number:
#49
Year of Inscription:
2015
Physical Location:
National Library of Australia(link is external)
This twenty-five page letter, written by journalist Keith Murdoch to his friend, Prime Minister Andrew Fisher, helped establish the notion of Gallipoli as both a disaster and a place of national sacrifice. Murdoch's conversational yet brutally honest letter played a key role in ending the Gallipoli campaign and in the evacuation of British and Anzac troops from the peninsula. In its opening pages, Murdoch describes the Gallipoli campaign as 'undoubtedly one of the most terrible chapters in our history'.
The letter was written and cabled to Fisher in September 1915 after Murdoch had returned to London from his four-day visit to Gallipoli. In London, Murdoch met with senior members of the British government who then persuaded the British Prime Minister, Henry Herbert Asquith, to read the letter. Asquith had it printed as a state paper and circulated to the committee in charge of the campaign. By January 1916, all Allied troops had been successfully withdrawn from Gallipoli without loss of life.

Besides the war correspondent, tribute must be paid to the war artists and photographers who capture elements of combat, including the impact of war on civilians. Will anyone who has seen it ever forget the photo of the young girl running down a road naked, because her clothes had been burnt off her body, I think maybe from napalm?

 

[VaughanJB]

Unless the position is used as a weapon.

But that's the point - it's the ultimate weapon. The truth is the truth, and it's always bound to offend someone.