The journalist's right to information in time of war and on dangerous missions

Abstract

It is commonplace to say that we live in an age of instantaneous information and communication. During the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies, pictures taken in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and showing members of the US Armed Forces and Iraqi detainees in disgraceful circumstances could be seen within minutes all over the world. The message carried by those pictures changed the discourse on the Iraq war of 2003–2004.We have become used to instant information through real-time reporting on events occurring in the various corners of the world. This flow of news is taken for granted, and we expect our favourite radio or TV station to deliver the latest news at every moment of the day. Seeing pictures taken inside a well-guarded prison in a war a few thousand kilometres away is no longer a surprise.Wars have always attracted writers eager to report on what happens when men fight against men. Some of these reports have become immortal works of world literature. Some may even have influenced the course of history. Only a few memorable examples are Homer's epic poem on the fall of Troy, Julius Caesar'sDe bello gallicoor the Indian epicMahabharata. On a different level, who knows that Winston Churchill, at the age of 25, was a war correspondent reporting from the Boer War in 1899?An accidental war correspondent deserves to be mentioned here, Henry Dunant, who happened to witness the aftermath of a particularly murderous battle, the Battle of Solferino in northern Italy in 1859.