Witnesses to War The History of Australian Conflict Reporting

WITNESSES TO WAR is a landmark history of Australian war journalism that covers the major conflicts of the 20th Century: World War I, World War II, Vietnam and Bosnia through to recent and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. WITNESSES TO WAR looks at how journalists reported the horrors and politics of war, the rise of the celebrity journalist, issues of censorship and the ethics of 'embedding'. Interviews with leading war correspondents including John Pilger, Paul McGeough and Chris Masters reveal the challenges of covering wars and how they personally deal with the violence they witness. Many describe becoming desensitised to the horror. Many other journalists are permanently marked by it.

Fay Anderson (Author) : Fay Anderson is a lecturer at the Australian Centre in the School of Historical Studies at the University of Melbourne. She was educated at La Trobe University and the University of Melbourne. After graduating, Fay lived in Paris and Jerusalem for several years. Fay’s PhD thesis was published in 2005 by Melbourne University Publishing and entitled, An Historian’s Life: Max Crawford and the Politics of Academic Freedom. Richard Trembath (Author) : Richard Trembath teaches history at the University of Melbourne. He has co-authored All Care and Responsibility, a history of the nursing profession in Victoria, and in 2005 published A Different Sort of War about the Australian experience of the Korean War. In 2008, Richard co-authored Divine Discontent, a new history of the Brotherhood of St Laurence. Much of Richard’s work has involved interviews and oral history. Currently he is researching the story of Australia’s indigenous soldiers.