Reporting The Retreat (Book Review)

To hold upwardly honest, I am non much of a armed services history person. I am also non precisely a WWII somebody either when it comes to readings at the intersection of function as well as leisure.
But Philip Woods’ Reporting the Retreat-War Correspondents inwards Burma intrigued me for its sub-title as well as I actually enjoyed the reflections it sparked vis-à-vis today’s challenges of state of war reporting as well as the complexities of truth inwards media to a greater extent than generally.

Philip Woods’ mass close ‘the six-month, ane thousand-mile retreat of the British as well as Chinese armies from Burma inwards the commencement one-half of 1942’ (p.1) is a rattling good researched historical illustration study of journalism, tidings media as well as the function of unusual correspondents. The mass looks at a grouping of twenty-six correspondents who reported from Burma for newspapers as well as weekly newsreel broadcasts and, as important, close one-half of the grouping wrote memoirs soon afterwards their assignment inwards South Asia.
The discrepancies betwixt their daily work, ever impeded past times armed services censorship, as well as their frank book-length accounts are a brilliant reminder that at that spot never were ‘good one-time days’ when it comes to state of war reporting as well as that many of today’s challenges possess got remained through time, novel (digital) media as well as many dissimilar state of war theaters.

Fake news, propaganda & for-profit tidings organizations
One of the things I constitute quite astonishing was the extent of censorship as well as how most of the journalists followed the directive to back upwardly the ‘war effort’ through their reporting: ‘Journalists had to acquaint their dispatches to 3 authorities’ (p.57) as well as the main civil censor in ane trial told journalist Leland Stowe:

I ever enquire myself if my honey devoted miss inwards England would hold upwardly alarmed past times this (reporting). If she’d hold upwardly alarmed, even as well as therefore true, it shouldn’t hold upwardly reported (p.59).

So piece Eve Curie, the entirely woman somebody reporter, shared a frank trouble concern human relationship inwards her book Journey Among Warriors published inwards 1943, ‘her paper reports displayed none of that gloomy realism’ depicted inwards her mass (p.61). In the end, she ‘told a partial truth close the air state of war over Rangoon but it covered a greater deception close the nation of state of war inwards the residual of Burma’ (p.62).
These are precisely the issues that Pb to many of the debates nosotros possess got today close biased journalism, partial truths as well as the spread of alleged or existent ‘fake news’, ofttimes blamed on digital developments.

In practice, however, newsreel self-censored because they understood that their purpose inside the motion-picture present theatre programe was to avoid alienating audiences as well as back upwardly the main film. Newsreel editors also realized the ability of regime to command access to locations as well as to cinema stock, as well as anyway naturally saw themselves as contributing to the patriotic state of war seek (p.84-85).

So both commercial as well as ideological leanings of tidings programme producers played an of import purpose inwards framing news, sometimes existence rattling unopen to ‘fake news’ past times re-enacting battle scenes (p.89).

Emotional cost of reporting & the nascency of Magnum photography
In improver to paper as well as newsreel journalism, photo-journalism was the tertiary of import pillar of journalistic engagement. This was an era when Life mag had a circulation of to a greater extent than than 3.25 1000000 only about the globe.
This is the fourth dimension of George Rodger who saw himself as a ‘war lensman as well as no journalist’ (p.78) as well as who also wrote a memoir of his fourth dimension inwards Burma. After his assignment ended inwards Asia he returned to Europe at the terminate of the state of war as well as was ane of the photographers who photographed the victims of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. ‘His long sense of state of war had left him scarred as well as it is nor surprising that he did non proceed as state of war photographer’ as well as became a founding fellow member of the Magnum Photos cooperative inwards 1947 (p.79).

How depressing or encouraging is the long historical view?
Looking dorsum to journalistic exercise as well as professionalism 75 years agone offers some actually interesting insights into today’s discourses only about state of war reporting. What Woods describes as ‘inevitable preference for stories of European evacuees’ (p.126) rings rattling truthful amongst today’s discussions only about the ‘value’ of Northern victims as well as ‘heroes’ inwards journalism or evolution communication.
And Fay Anderson’s observation that

essentially reporters were imagined as an archetypal cliché-resilient, hard-drinking, hedonistic, churlish, as well as cynical. Let us telephone telephone it the Hemingway syndrome-the celebrated machismo (p.140)

seems appropriate to hold inwards hear inwards contemporary debates close assistance worker well-being as well as expat lifestyles. And at that spot was for certain no back upwardly scheme inwards house when reporters similar as well as therefore many others returned from the battlefields of WWII as well as were left lone inwards coping amongst their trauma.

Woods’ provides a measured conclusion, pointing out that state of war reporters regularly helped ‘wounded civilians or engendered refugees’ (p.146). They ‘embellished’ stories, but also wrote the proverbial ‘first draft of history’ (p.146) through their dispatches from the front end lines.

Censorship fix house limits on what they could study as well as the pressures of the media marketplace meant that positive, exciting as well as timely tales of armed services actions were the stories that editors, the military, politicians as well as the full general world wanted from them, as well as the temptation was ever at that spot to possess got shortcuts to supply them (p.146).

I remember it is of import that Reporting the Retreat ends on a depository fiscal establishment notation that neither romanticizes nor dismisses the journalists’ appointment as well as hints at of import structural challenges of how media as well as tidings possess got ever worked. It is quite remarkable that state of war reporting as well as journalism from unusual places silent evokes similar debates than it has done throughout the in conclusion viii decades.

Woods presents a actually interesting illustration study past times analyzing a wide arrive at of textile that deserve to a greater extent than attending from evolution or media scholars as well: Notebooks, diaries as well as memoirs together amongst media outputs aid us to ameliorate sympathise the limitations as well as circumstances of how media discourses as well as world perceptions are shaped.

At the terminate of the twenty-four hours the mass is also an of import reminder that things are non necessarily getting ‘better’ or ‘worse’ only because of ‘the Internet’-understanding the truths behind state of war as well as peace has ever been hard as well as the genre of state of war reporting deserves peculiarly nuanced as well as critical interpretation. 

Woods, Philip: Reporting the Retreat-War Correspondents inwards Burma. ISBN 978-1-84904-717-3, 206pp, 20.00 GBP, London: Hurst, 2017.