Editorial: The ongoing challenges

Abstract

The notion that the war correspondents of today are essentially the same as their colleagues of, say the Vietnam war of more than four decades ago—but now armed with laptops, satellite dishes and digital cameras—is a fallacy. Australian author and media educator Tony Maniaty reminds us thus in this edition of Pacific Journalism Review. He writes: There are notable exceptions—people who operate with vigorous independence from all authority and control—but these are rare: The emergence of a media-military complex, in which journalists are heavily integrated into the fighting machine and into the coverage of one perspective only of war, has fundamentally changed the nature of the business (p. 36)

Keywords

• armed conflict
• conflict reporting
• disaster reporting
• Geneva Conventions
• humanitarian law
• war reporting