The First Casualty

[Nonno]

The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq by Phillip Knightley

"The first casualty when war comes, is truth." (Senator Hiram Johnson,1917)

"Reporting from the battlefield historically has often been censored and controlled. Author Phillip Knightley, in the original and updated versions of his book, “The First Casualty,” wrote about war correspondents as “heroes and myth-makers.” Knightley traces the start of war reporting to the 1854 assignment of a London Times reporter to report on the Crimean War – and he documents examples of military censorship as well as occasions when the news media became, in effect, an ally of the armed forces." (Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001.

Fully updated, The First Casualty remains required reading for anyone concerned about freedom of the press, journalistic responsibility, and the nature of modern warfare.