---
title: "Journalism and Warfare: How It Works on the Front Lines"
description: "Across the world, many thousands fight for their survival in the most dire of circumstances. From the trenches and open fields of Ukraine, to the bombed-out crucible that is the Gaza Strip, to largely forgotten corners of the world like Myanmar, Kurdistan, Sudan, and the Sahel, many battles rage at any given moment. Every time bombs explode, or tank cannons fire, or soldiers fire their weapons, a story develops, and almost always, many individual stories will end, in the blink of an eye. But amidst the danger, amidst the fear and turmoil, the stories that come and go are all but entirely destined to be lost to history. The danger is too great to justify cataloguing them; the lives that end do so in a hail of bullets; and in such terrifying places under such hostile conditions, making it home is a luxury at the best of times, and an impossibility at the worst. But on the ground, amidst the most brutal conflicts on Earth, a brave and select few still forge ahead, to tell the world what they can, and warn the world of what they must. They are conflict journalists, war correspondents, and it is their chosen profession to follow the carnage and bloodshed, to expose the truth of what happens in the worst places on Earth. It is a thankless task, a job that requires sacrifice and hardship far greater than most, and one that can put a lone, unarmed journalist at odds with some of the deadliest and most ruthless armies on the planet. Yet despite the danger, a select few still pursue their calling within the fog of war.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n- Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions establishes that journalists in war zones must be treated and protected as civilians, provided they do not take part in hostilities.\n- Some 1,400 journalists were killed between 1997 and 2014 according to the International Press Institute in Vienna, the majority of whom were war correspondents.\n- William Howard Russell, born in 1827, is widely considered the first modern war correspondent for his twenty-two months of reporting during the Crimean War, including the Siege of Sevastopol and the Charge of the Light Brigade.\n- Marie Colvin was killed in Homs, Syria, on February 22, 2012, alongside photojournalist Remi Ochlik in what was believed to be a deliberate bombing of their safe house.\n- Three Russian journalists—Orkhan Dzhemal, Alexander Rastorguyev, and Kirill Radchenko—were killed in 2018 in the Central African Republic while investigating the Wagner Group.\n- Ukrainian photojournalist Maks Levin was found dead on April 1, 2022, near Kyiv, and Reporters Without Borders concluded he was tortured and executed while wearing his press jacket.\n\n## What Is a War Correspondent?\n\nAt its most fundamental level, the role of a war correspondent is straightforward, albeit very daunting. Whomever they may work for, wherever they may go, a war correspondent's role is to travel to active conflict zones and provide on-the-ground coverage for whatever happens there. They may do their work through the written word, cataloguing conditions and conversations, and sending their stories along to news bureaus halfway across the globe. They may do it via photojournalism, providing context where necessary but letting the sight of human devastation tell its own story. Or they may do it in film, documenting the things they do or the people they meet in real time. But whatever the medium, the core objective remains the same: travel to places where war and conflict have forced the rest of the global media out, and report back on what you find. To do that, war correspondents must report from an ambiguous perspective, in the vast majority of cases. The journalist, their life, their experience, is not the story, and their recollections of war are important not because they're that person's recollections, but because human observation of war is the only way for others to learn of what's happened in some far-flung place. While a war correspondent will always filter their observations and their environment through the lens of their own humanity, that is, in many ways, an imperfection of the act of reporting on war, not a feature. Sometimes, of course, that more narrative perspective can be helpful; as Sorbonne University's Digital Encyclopedia of European History put it: \"Their ground-level narrative, built around a series of anecdotes, cuts across grand historical narratives, even if this also means embellishing them, and participating henceforth in the construction of myths.\" At other times, such a filter is unnecessary, or even a waste, be it in order to present as unadulterated and minimally biased an account as possible, or to spread urgent news when there is simply no time to wax poetic. Ultimately, no matter what kind of narrator a war correspondent is, their relationship to the conflicts they cover can only work one way. They cannot be the spokesperson for just one side; after all, that would mean that they aren't a war correspondent, but a propagandist. Instead, they are the spokesperson for the conflict itself, reporting on the goings-on, and, at least broadly, leaving it to somebody else to do the framing of that information later.\n\n## The Many Dimensions of Conflict Reporting\n\nWhile the fundamental duty of a war correspondent is consistent across organizations and across conflicts, the work of a war correspondent can be incredibly diverse. That reality goes far beyond a journalist's chosen medium—whether they're giving their information via the written word, or in documentary form, or in podcasts, or whatever else. Some conflict journalists report on the tactical level—reporting, for example, on battles and skirmishes as they happen, and traveling from place to place in order to collect accounts and be witness to what happens there. They might do that reporting while embedded with a military unit, or by responding to leads on where a battle will take place, or by going it alone and trying to be in the right place at the right time. Alternatively, a journalist can work on a strategic level, trying to access the decision-makers in a given conflict, and keeping a pulse on different aspects of a war at once in order to see it all play out. Some report at the front lines, while others may report on the home front, or on areas impacted by surprise in brutal asymmetrical warfare. Others may not be focused so much on following soldiers, as they are on following the money, and unveiling the root causes of conflict that so often go unseen. When they do work at or near the front, some journalists might focus on the troops doing the fighting, while others might focus on the civilians caught in the middle. Most of the time, a journalist will engage in more than one of those reporting types over the course of an assignment, following stories wherever they lead and doing their level best to report what they find. Luckily for those who pursue a career as a war correspondent, their protection is ensured under the Geneva Conventions, with firm and well-established standards meant to draw a line between correspondent and combatant. Per Article 79 of Additional Protocol I, the Conventions establish that journalists in war zones must be treated as civilians, and that they must be protected as any other civilian would be—provided, of course, that they do not take part in hostilities on the ground. Journalists are expected to be issued identification cards from the nation that they reside, clearly indicating their status as a journalist and the citizen of a foreign country. They are to be protected from the effect and impact of hostilities, and in the event that they are captured, they are to be exempted from \"arbitrary measures\" that their captors would otherwise take with imprisoned individuals, such as torture or extrajudicial execution. While embedded journalists, accompanying military units, are in somewhat more of a grey area in practice, they, too, are considered by most nations to be civilians, and in the event that journalists are captured, they are to be treated by all nations with the same high expectations as those afforded to the treatment of any other prisoners of war.\n\n## The Dangers and Motivations of War Correspondence\n\nLike any other job, the reality is far more messy than what a person might read about in a LinkedIn posting, and in the case of war correspondents, the reality often is far more dangerous than they may have first imagined. Author Greg McLaughlin wrote in his 2016 book, The War Correspondent: \"The job of the war correspondent is defined by the risks and dangers involved with getting the story: death, injury, kidnap, harassment and imprisonment, among others.\" As McLaughlin cites from the International Press Institute in Vienna, some 1,400 journalists were killed between 1997 and 2014, the majority of whom were war correspondents of some kind. For conflict journalists, acceptance of that risk is a prerequisite, although there's more than one way to come to peace with it. Some do it by taking extra precautions for their continued safety, others embrace gallows humor or make preparations for the worst in order to reconcile the possibility, and others take the perspective of English television journalist Lindsey Hilsum: \"We're all supposed to be in danger all the time and we're all supposed to be traumatized and in need of psychotherapy because of all the dangerous things that we do. I mean, it's bollocks! We choose to do this and it is sometimes dangerous but so are lots of other jobs. Nobody forces me to do this.\" As for the question of why a person would take up war correspondence, that answer is a highly varied one, too. Many conflict journalists are thrill-seekers, and some are described that way whether they'd agree or not. Others aspire to the role, having grown up on war correspondence from World War II and eventually becoming a journalist at work in Vietnam. Still others stumble their way into the role, sometimes because they've already been journalists but happened to find their own country at war, and some because they took a job when offered to them. Many of them are there for the study of war itself, or for their deep and fundamental convictions of the importance of sharing the stories they write, no matter how difficult they may be to collect. And some are there for the glory. The iconic American journalist Walter Cronkite wrote: \"Nothing in the field of journalism is more glamorous than being a war correspondent.\"\n\n## Work and Life on the Front\n\nFor a person looking to work as a conflict journalist, the one constant is acceptance of risk. Sometimes, that's accepting the risk of getting shot at or getting stuck in the territory of a bloodthirsty armed force—but the risk starts long before that, and in fact, it starts as early as the moment a person agrees to report from active conflicts. For a war correspondent, being assigned to a conflict is a process in which there's only so much ability to exert control. If the hot-button war of the moment happens to pop up in, say, Taiwan, then congratulations to the correspondent, they're headed to Taiwan. If multiple conflicts are raging at once, as they so often are, a journalist is more likely to be assigned to the conflict that gathers the greatest public interest, than the one they feel is most important or most urgently in need of coverage. Independent journalists have a bit more latitude to go where they please, but although they may collect stories on a conflict, there's no guarantee anybody wants to hear them, introducing yet another level of risk that such a dangerous endeavor might be for very little reward. A guidebook published by the International Federation of Journalists lays out the importance of proactive safety measures: \"A journalist who puts him or herself needlessly at risk is behaving in an unprofessional manner; one that could ultimately prevent the story being told or the picture being seen. Some correspondents, photographers and camera operators in war zones embrace a macho culture and a competitive urge for danger. But good journalism is about delivering reliably, not about getting an adrenaline high.\" The guidebook stresses that journalists considering a conflict posting ensure that they are physically fit, not just to look good, but in order to ensure that they can sprint to safety, travel on foot for hours at a time, and sleep, eat, and withstand potential disease or digestive hardship under difficult conditions. A responsible conflict journalist will do exceptional levels of due diligence to learn about the situation they're walking into, including up-to-the-minute developments on the conflict itself, and as deep an understanding as possible of the communities they'll be interacting with. Journalists are strongly encouraged to figure out whether they are the right person for a job: whether their sex, their ethnicity, or other elements of their identity might put them in increased danger, and also whether that identity may be a barrier to people speaking candidly with them in the field. The equipment they take with them must include more than just pen, paper, and protective gear, and must include everything from satellite phones to field survival equipment to whatever small goods make for the best bartering tools in a given region. They've got to be prepared to be robbed, to lose access to drinking water, to have their glasses broken or their shoes worn out, and to have not a single toothbrush, toilet, or change of clothes within a hundred-mile radius. Finally, they must work to understand the realities on the ground in a given conflict zone, including the reality that not everybody respects the Geneva Conventions, not everybody is averse to torturing and killing journalists, and not everybody is able to come home after they've gone out on assignment.\n\n## Navigating Information, Access, and Personal Safety\n\nOn the ground, maintaining a relationship with the active parties in a conflict can be one of the most challenging parts of the job, although one of the most important. The old adage goes, \"the first casualty of war is truth\"—and that's for a reason. The fog of war is helpful for a military or its units, the ambiguity of what a unit or a military has done at war is critical if they're to return to their homes and communities without judgment, and the ability to control the narrative can be just as important to a war effort as the ability to control the battlefield. Inherently, war correspondents break the monopoly that a fighting force wants to have over the information space within their war, and for war correspondents to be tolerated at all, they've got to have both the impartiality to treat each side as fairly as they treat the others, and the discretion to know when and what to report, and what to save for a later time. Access is everything, and to lose access is to lose any level of insight into a war as it is fought. Next is personal safety in an environment filled with deadly weapons. The International Federation of Journalists emphasizes that war correspondents be aware of how weapons work and what they do, to the extent that they can look at a set of combatants and their weaponry and know whether they're in range, whether the people they're looking at know how to use their weapons properly, and how dangerous it'll be if those weapons are suddenly pointed at the war correspondent's head. They've got to plan travel routes, and understand both the benefits and risks of traveling with convoys. They've got to be able to get through checkpoints, understand how much punishment and direct fire their vehicles can take, and know the difference between taking cover in order to hide from somebody's view, and taking cover in order to hide from somebody's gunfire. The IFJ writes, in part: \"Take responsibility for your own decisions. Do not be drawn into lethal situations by other journalists. Never carry a firearm or weapon – you lose your civilian status. If busy streets suddenly empty, perhaps you should consider a rapid withdrawal. Remember you may have to run for your life.\" For many war correspondents, the day-to-day job requires constant uncertainty, and constant persistence in trying to find their way forward. Many reporters choose to go it alone, without journalistic partners or security, and sometimes will functionally surrender themselves even to rebels, guerrillas, or non-state actors, where their safety is far from guaranteed. They might travel with field producers, often local journalists referred to as \"fixers\" who can speak the local language, leverage their contacts, and, at times, accept a great deal of risk for minimal pay. Going out on assignment in the field doesn't just mean potentially walking into a firefight; it means traveling somewhere with no food but what you carry on your person, with no guarantee of a place to sleep safely, and with no guarantee of a way to get out from wherever you're headed.\n\n## Conditions in the Field and the Psychological Toll\n\nThe conditions a person will stay in may be halfway decent at times, or they might be downright apocalyptic. Either way, war correspondents often don't find out till they arrive. Working in such a space, and taking the risk of seeking out a story, means surrendering control. As for what those conditions look like, they'll almost always mirror the conditions of everybody else on the ground. Embed with a combat unit, and a journalist will eat where they eat, and sleep where they sleep. Travel through the middle of nowhere to report on isolated guerrillas, and a journalist will be pitching tents, filtering water as best they can, and perhaps relying on the kindness of locals who share a word or two of a common language. Report on a city of bombed-out ruins, where electricity is scarce and the people sleep in rubble, and a journalist should expect neither a personal generator nor a hotel bed. And start reporting from inside an isolated city, only to have it encircled and besieged for months or even years at a time—and if food runs low, and the people there begin to starve, then that conflict journalist is likely going to begin to starve too. All the while, the realities of being a full-time journalist on assignment will not go away. Deadlines still need to be met, stories still need to be written and transmitted even from difficult conditions. Editors still want the sorts of stories that are going to play well, that are going to make an impact, that are going to beat out the journalism from rival organizations who may have their own people on the ground. If you're starving, if you're shot at, if you're kidnapped, if you're tortured, the people back home who employ you will certainly be concerned for your safety, but more than one war correspondent has been invited to see if they can't convert those experiences into a compelling 2,000 words for Sunday's issue. In the crucible that is modern warfare, keeping one's welfare and sanity are of ultimate importance. While journalists are ultimately the ones responsible for their own safety, and should have leeway from their employer to avoid stepping directly into the line of fire, that's not always a possibility. Every journalist venturing into a war zone must take it upon themselves to wear their bulletproof vests, to decide whether or not to carry a sidearm for their own protection, and to write their will, ensuring that it's in the hands of beloved individuals who may not ever find out whether, or how, they met their end. Many conflict journalists speak of the struggle of moderating their own psyche, balancing the desire to push further, seek out danger, and accept tremendous risk in order to get the story, and the simultaneous urge to live another day. These are people who must think carefully about whether they're there to report the day's events, or to bear witness to the suffering of those they see. They must weigh whether their humanity is best spent cataloguing the horrific reality that those people have endured, or whether their humanity might not be able to bear the act of feeling such horror, as the victims themselves felt it, and somehow keeping the clarity they need to do their work. Even for those who survive and return home, the job takes one hell of a toll; alcoholism and drug abuse are common within the profession, marriages and familial connections are difficult to maintain, and suicide rates within the community of war correspondents are high. Journalist Greg Myre wrote for NPR, back in 2012: \"War correspondents have always been at the short end of the actuarial tables.\"\n\n## The Burden of Bearing Witness Without Intervening\n\nAlongside that intense psychological hardship comes one other fundamental reality to war correspondence, one that is just as difficult, if not more so, for a conflict journalist to live with: you can't save everyone. In fact, most of the time, you can't save anyone. The nature of conflict journalism is not to intervene in the story playing out before a person's eyes, and in fact, to do so would put every other war correspondent around the world at risk. While a journalist on the front lines may need to protect their own lives by force, taking a side in any conflict jeopardizes the very fragile understanding that leads combatants in a war to allow journalists to peer through the veil. Fire a weapon in anger, leave the pen behind and take up with one side or the other, intervene in an atrocity or a war crime playing out before your eyes, and that trust is broken, no matter how justified in the moment. The same goes for a war correspondent's security guards, to the extent that some organizations even discourage the practice; the International Committee of the Red Cross has noted: \"The way in which 'unilateral' journalists surround themselves with armed bodyguards can have dangerous consequences for all journalists.\" And Robert Menard, the then-Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders, said in regard to the use of private escorts during the Iraq War: \"Such a practice sets a dangerous precedent that could jeopardize all other journalists covering this war as well as others in the future.\" Even if you survive the day, it's the impact of those actions on the next war correspondent that comes after you, the next person to put themselves in the line of fire, that must be avoided, no matter how hard it is. And despite how heart-wrenching it must be, despite all the pain that comes with a front-row seat to human destruction, the reality of war correspondence is that the subjects of a given story might not survive the day. Write a profile on a soldier, or a unit of soldiers, operating near the front lines, and by the time that profile reaches your editor in New York or London or Paris, those soldiers may have already been mowed down. Take careful, precise, comprehensive footage of the murder of civilians, and no matter how quickly you share that footage with the world, it will never bring those civilians back, even as you may have known, in that moment and ever since, that you could have intervened, but chose to document, instead. All that is not to say that intervening in such a moment would have been a better or more just option. The work of conflict journalists is far too important, and the value of letting the world know about one such atrocity may prevent ten or even a hundred in the future. But to bear the responsibility to inform, to educate, to document, instead of intervening, is an exceptionally heavy burden, and one that a successful war correspondent must be able to carry every day, faced with the constant expectation that their dedication to their craft will be tested both frequently and painfully.\n\n## Pioneers and Profiles in Conflict Journalism\n\nWhen it comes to highlighting the individuals who have been conflict journalists, and through their work, have offered incredibly valuable contributions, there are simply too many to mention. The reporter widely considered to be the first modern war correspondent was an Irishman named William Howard Russell. Born in 1827, Russell had gotten an early start reporting on a conflict between Prussian and Danish troops as a young man in 1850, but the bulk of his work took place during the Crimean War. Across twenty-two months of reporting, Russell witnessed the Siege of Sevastopol, the Battle of the Alma River, and the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava, all the while sending dispatches that revolutionized the way the public thought about war. For the first time, methods of global communication were efficient and speedy enough that people could hear accounts of war from somebody who was there, rather than just someone making a more grandiose account of their own experiences after the fact. On the one hand, the reports were horrific to read, but on the other, they made a tremendous impact. The British public was able to exert intense pressure on the government to improve the lot of its troops and save their lives, with a care and consideration previously unheard-of, and Russell's reporting even inspired one Florence Nightingale to take an interest in revolutionizing the way that modern nations care for their injured soldiers. Just as iconic was the French investigative journalist Albert Londres, born in 1884. Londres would first work as a war correspondent during World War I, on account of his poor health making him unsuitable for military service, and over the course of the war, he would document a wide range of battlefields in eastern and central Europe. In 1920, he would find his way into the Soviet Union, where figures like Lenin and Trotsky were eager to talk to somebody like him, and the plight of the Soviet people was brought to public attention for the first time. Londres would report not just on the Great War, but on the low-grade conflicts his own country orchestrated against its many colonial holdings, raising awareness of the havoc that France had wrought on places like Senegal, French Guyana, and the Congo. And while the American author Ernest Hemingway would be known far more for his works of fiction, he was also a prominent war correspondent in his day. During the late 1930s, he covered the Spanish Civil War in detail, seeing up-close and personal as Francisco Franco's armies surged across the Spanish landscape and established their new regime. Then, he would report during World War II, and bear first-hand witness to the Normandy Landings even while sporting a head wound that required fifty-seven stitches. Hemingway would eventually take a side in that war, ending up an informal infantry leader for a village militia outside of Paris, and gaining the ire of war correspondents around the world because of his clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.\n\n## Modern Losses: Marie Colvin, the Wagner Three, and Others\n\nAn incredible number of journalists have distinguished themselves in service to their collective cause, and too many have died in the act. Perhaps the most recognizable war correspondent to die during their work in the 2000s was Marie Colvin, a journalist from New York City who died in Homs, Syria, at age fifty-six in 2012. Colvin had been a leading foreign correspondent for decades, and had covered conflicts firsthand from Chechnya, Serbia, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. In East Timor, she and her reporting were credited for saving 1,500 women and children, as she stayed with them in a besieged compound for several days and reported the situation in real time to global audiences. In 2001, she lost the sight in her left eye after being caught in a blast from a rocket-propelled grenade in Sri Lanka, an attack in which she was targeted despite being clearly identifiable as a journalist. Colvin would complete her 3,000-word article on deadline before she was hospitalized, and from then on, she would don an eye patch rather than hide what had been done to her. In 2012, she would travel to cover the Syrian Civil War, reporting on the destruction of the city of Homs as it happened. On the night of February 21, she would make her final broadcast, describing indiscriminate bombing and sniper attacks against civilians, and describing it as the worst conflict she had ever seen. Hours later, she and a photojournalist named Remi Ochlik would be killed in what was believed to be a deliberate bombing of their safe house. She is remembered today as an indispensable force in modern conflict journalism; in Colvin's own words, war: \"is what happens to people, and no one wants it… It's what you try to bear witness to. That makes me think you can sometimes make a difference – attempt to, anyway.\" A trio of Russian journalists were killed in 2018 in the Central African Republic while following the trail of an obscure mercenary group that has since become prominent in global affairs: the Wagner Group. The journalists were career war correspondent Orkhan Dzhemal, documentarian Alexander Rastorguyev, and cameraman Kirill Radchenko, traveling to the CAR to investigate what, exactly, a rumored Wagner detachment was doing there. The three were able to enter the CAR, equipped with expensive equipment and substantial amounts of cash to ease their way, but they were ambushed and fired upon by armed men, about 180 miles north of the capital city of Bangui. Although the specific reason for their killing has never been firmly established, it is widely understood that they were killed by the Wagner Group in order to prevent them from doing their work as journalists—and they wouldn't be the only ones. In April of that same year, a journalist named Maxim Borodin happened to fall from his fifth-floor balcony in Russia, after having run in-depth stories on Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the group's shadowy affairs in Syria.\n\n## Deaths in Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine\n\nDuring the ongoing Israel-Hamas War in Gaza, many journalists have been killed as a direct or indirect result of Israeli operations, and others have seen their family members killed, often several at a time. Among those killed was a Lebanese journalist named Issam Abdallah. Working for Reuters, Abdallah had reported on conflicts inside Lebanon, the Syrian Civil War, and the Russo-Ukrainian War, and he had been instrumental in collecting images and documentation around the Beirut port explosion of 2020. While covering exchanges of fire, rocket attacks, and airstrikes between Israel and the non-state organization Hezbollah, Abdallah was in a group of journalists that was hit by direct tank fire from the Israeli Defense Force. Six journalists were injured in the attack, and Abdallah died at the scene. Reporters Without Borders found that Abdallah's death was the result of a targeted strike against clearly marked, easily identifiable journalists, and a United Nations report concurred in 2024. The story of Maks Levin, a Ukrainian photojournalist, is equally harrowing. Levin had reported on the front lines during the low-grade conflict in Ukraine's Donbas region starting in 2014. He had survived being surrounded by Russian forces in August of that year, and he had continued covering the war up to, and during, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But a few weeks after the full-scale conflict began, Levin went missing alongside his friend Oleksiy Chernyshov, after attempting to photograph the effects of Russian temporary occupation near Kyiv. His body would be found on April 1, 2022, and subsequent investigation would find that he was shot while unarmed, and wearing his press jacket. A follow-up investigation by Reporters Without Borders found that Levin was almost certainly tortured before he was executed, and that the friend who had gone with him was burned alive. These cases represent only a fraction of the journalists lost in modern conflicts. Each death represents not only a personal tragedy but a direct assault on the principle that the world has a right to know what happens in war zones. The targeting of clearly identified journalists—whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, or Ukraine—signals a growing willingness among belligerents to eliminate those who would document their actions, regardless of the legal protections enshrined in international law.\n\n## The Escalating Threat to War Correspondents and the Future of Conflict Journalism\n\nWartime journalism today is under greater threat than it has ever been. Across the world, war correspondents face escalating danger as global militaries and non-state actors appear more willing than ever to kill and maim the journalists who might pose an inconvenience to their war effort, and are more and more fearless when it comes to incurring the repercussions that should follow the killing of journalists in cold blood. In a global order that has increasingly shown that it lacks the mechanisms to punish the killing of war correspondents, the sad reality is that the people doing this job today are far more likely to be shot, blown up, tortured, or otherwise killed as a matter of course. Belligerents on any side of a conflict have little to fear by disposing of a journalist when it serves them, and so they do, with impunity. According to UNESCO, twenty journalists were killed in active conflict zones in 2021; twenty-eight would die in 2022; and thirty-eight would die in 2023. War correspondence is a rapidly evolving field. On the one hand, the new prevalence of social media and handheld devices has had a range of impacts all at once. It is easier to become a conflict journalist if a person wishes to; it is easier to get the news to more places, and faster; it is easier to reach people in war zones; and it is easier to see where the hot zones are, from moment to moment, in order to get there and cover what's happening. But it is also far easier to track war correspondents, to find them and snuff them out, to blackmail them, and to discredit their work. Propaganda is easier to manufacture and spread; misinformation and deepfakes are easier than ever to create. At the same time, across much of the Western world, media has been forced to cut costs and cut corners—sometimes with very real impacts to the safety of the correspondents they've chosen to place at greatest risk. The rise of a social-media-driven news ecosystem has meant that it is harder to cover the conflicts that matter, especially when nobody wants to hear about them. In this moment in history, engagement rules all, and if a subject isn't compelling enough to generate attention, then it is up to a news bureau to determine whether it still warrants coverage—and the answer isn't always yes. Conflicts in Sudan, the Sahel, Myanmar, the Congo, and elsewhere often see their coverage buried toward the very bottom of the news websites that correspondents work so hard to serve, while stories from well-covered conflicts like Gaza and Ukraine dominate. Yet despite the risks, despite the growing peril and the immense hardship they face, a select few war correspondents continue to do their critical work from the front lines. The world would be a fundamentally different place without them, a fundamentally worse place, without people willing to face down mortal danger and, as author Greg McLaughlin put it, \"not so much tell truth to power but spell out the truth about power.\" The unfortunate reality of war is that it will continue, regardless of what the world thinks of it, and that by the time the work of these war correspondents reaches any of us, it's already too late to intervene in what they've documented. But in a world where knowledge confers power, and where the first casualty of war is the truth, the work of these journalists is absolutely indispensable.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What legal protections do journalists have in war zones?\n\nUnder Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, journalists in war zones must be treated and protected as civilians, provided they do not take part in hostilities. They are to be issued identification cards from their home nation, protected from the impact of hostilities, and if captured, exempted from arbitrary measures such as torture or extrajudicial execution.\n\n### Who is considered the first modern war correspondent?\n\nWilliam Howard Russell, born in 1827, is widely considered the first modern war correspondent. He spent twenty-two months reporting during the Crimean War, witnessing the Siege of Sevastopol, the Battle of the Alma River, and the Charge of the Light Brigade, and sending dispatches that revolutionized how the public understood war. His reporting helped inspire Florence Nightingale to revolutionize the care of injured soldiers.\n\n### How was Marie Colvin killed, and why is she significant?\n\nMarie Colvin, a New York-born foreign correspondent, was killed in Homs, Syria, on February 22, 2012, alongside photojournalist Remi Ochlik in what was believed to be a deliberate bombing of their safe house. She had spent decades covering conflicts from Chechnya to Sri Lanka and was credited with saving 1,500 women and children by reporting their plight live from a besieged compound in East Timor. She is remembered as one of the most consequential war correspondents of the modern era.\n\n### What psychological toll does war correspondence take on journalists?\n\nThe psychological burden is severe and lasting. Conflict journalists must bear witness to atrocities without intervening, carry the weight of documenting suffering they cannot prevent, and meet editorial deadlines even while facing danger or captivity. Survivors commonly struggle with alcoholism, drug abuse, broken family relationships, and high rates of suicide. Journalist Greg Myre noted that war correspondents have always been at the short end of actuarial tables.\n\n### How has the rise of social media changed the dangers facing war correspondents?\n\nSocial media and handheld devices have made conflict journalism faster and more accessible, allowing reporters to reach larger audiences and track hot zones in real time. However, these same technologies make war correspondents far easier to track, find, and silence. Propaganda and misinformation are also easier to manufacture and spread, and the social-media-driven news ecosystem makes it harder to sustain coverage of conflicts that do not generate strong audience engagement.\n\n## Related Coverage\n- [South Sudan is on Fire. Here's Why. (And More)](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/south-sudan-is-on-fire-heres-why-and-more)\n- [Why Famine is Returning as a Weapon of War](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/why-famine-is-returning-as-a-weapon-of-war)\n- [The Art of War: Power Projection](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/the-art-of-war-power-projection)\n- [The Art of War: How Artillery Shaped Battlefields Across Centuries](https://warfronts.pub/defense/art-of-war-artillery-history-and-modern-impact)\n- [Why the World Ignored the 21st Century's Deadliest War](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/why-world-ignored-ethiopias-tigray-war-deadliest-21st-century)\n\n## Sources\n1. <https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/war_correspondents>\n2. <https://safety.rsf.org/appendix-i-protection-of-journalists-in-war-zones/#:~:text=Under%20Article%2079%20of%20Additional,no%20part%20in%20the%20hostilities>\n3. <https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/protection-journalists>\n4. <https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/wars-and-memories/representations-war/war-reporters>\n5. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x>\n6. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.6?seq=26>\n7. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.7?seq=2>\n8. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.14>\n9. <https://medium.com/lantern-theater-company-searchlight/i-became-addicted-to-it-the-danger-of-war-correspondence-9e11e3328665>\n10. <https://www.npr.org/2012/02/23/147290996/for-war-reporters-the-risks-of-going-solo>\n11. <https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/they-are-not-fixers-they-are-journalists-light-war-ukraine-three-field-producers-discuss>\n12. <https://oxfordre.com/communication/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-791>\n13. <https://cpj.org/resources-for-journalists-covering-conflict/>\n14. <https://www.ifj.org/fileadmin/images/Live_News_versions/Live_News_EN.pdf>\n15. <https://www.icfj.org/news/ethical-tips-journalists-reporting-conflict>\n16. <https://www.voicesofyouth.org/blog/conflict-journalism-dangers-pursuing-truth-0>\n17. <https://www.thomsonfoundation.org/latest/a-practical-guide-for-journalists-reporting-in-ukraine-and-other-conflict-zones/>\n18. <https://www.icfj.org/news/safety-tips-journalists-conflict-zones>\n19. <https://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/2024/01/03/conduct-in-conflict-engagement-with-citizen-journalists-in-war-zones/>\n20. <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1750635220987746>\n21. <https://en.unav.edu/web/bebrave/pensar/los-deberes-y-derechos-de-un-periodista-de-guerra>\n22. <https://euneighbourseast.eu/news/stories/journalism-at-frontline/>\n23. <https://thefix.media/2023/6/19/whats-your-media-job-war-correspondent>\n24. <https://concept.journals.villanova.edu/article/view/555/1680>\n25. <https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/protection-journalists#:~:text=Journalists%20can%20and%20must%20try,confusion%20between%20reporters%20and%20combatants.%E2%80%9D>\n26. <https://cpj.org/reports/2012/04/armed-conflict/>\n27. <https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/reporting-front-lines-keeping-journalists-safe-war-zones>\n28. <https://www.mediasupport.org/what-we-do/safety-for-journalists/>\n29. <https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/jane-ferguson-details-career-reporting-in-war-zones-in-memoir-no-ordinary-assignment>\n30. <https://www.rct.uk/collection/exhibitions/roger-fentons-photographs-of-the-crimea/the-queens-gallery-palace-of/writing-about-the-war>\n31. <https://research.kent.ac.uk/victorianspecials/exhibitionitem/william-howard-russell-1820-1907/>\n32. <https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/research/spotlight-research/how-irishman-william-howard-russell-invented-modern-war-reporting>\n33. <https://www.blind-magazine.com/news/albert-londres-fighting-for-truth-with-pen-and-photography/>\n34. <https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20231126-albert-londres-crusading-reporter-behind-france-s-top-journalism-prize>\n35. <https://web.archive.org/web/20130907135031/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/22/marie-colvin>\n36. <https://mariecolvin.org/about-marie>\n37. <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47082088>\n38. <https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663571722/a-new-biography-of-marie-colvin-eyewitness-to-war>\n39. <https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/03/marie-colvin-murder-verdict--risks-journalists-lindsey-hilsum>\n40. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/01/russian-journalists-killed-central-african-republic-investigating-military-firm-kremlin-links>\n41. <https://www.npr.org/2018/08/02/635046238/3-russian-journalists-killed-while-probing-reports-of-mercenaries-in-africa>\n42. <https://www.npr.org/2018/04/21/604497554/why-do-russian-journalists-keep-falling>\n43. <https://www.france24.com/en/20180801-russia-journalists-killed-investigating-pmc-wagner-militia-central-african-republic>\n44. <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45030087>\n45. <https://www.reuters.com/world/obituary-reuters-issam-abdallah-covered-worlds-biggest-events-with-bravery-2023-10-14/>\n46. <https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-LEBANON/JOURNALIST/akveabxrzvr/>\n47. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/07/journalist-issam-abdallah-killed-by-israeli-tank-firing-in-quick-succession>\n48. <https://rsf.org/en/rsf-video-investigation-death-reuters-reporter-issam-abdallah-lebanon-journalists-vehicle-was>\n49. <https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/lebanon-deadly-israeli-attack-on-journalists-must-be-investigated-as-a-war-crime/>\n50. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/22/ukrainian-photographer-maksim-levin-executed-cold-blood-russia>\n51. <https://rsf.org/en/exclusive-rsf-investigation-death-maks-levin-information-and-evidence-collected-indicates>\n52. <https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-life-and-death-of-a-ukrainian-photographer>\n53. <https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/2023-alarming-increase-journalists-killed-conflict-zones>\n54. <https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/30/across-the-world-journalists-are-under-threat-for-sharing-the-truth#:~:text=Last%20year%20saw%2099%20killings,that%20important%20stories%20go%20unreported>\n55. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.14?seq=4>\n\n[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/war_correspondents\n[2]: https://safety.rsf.org/appendix-i-protection-of-journalists-in-war-zones/#:~:text=Under%20Article%2079%20of%20Additional,no%20part%20in%20the%20hostilities\n[3]: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/protection-journalists\n[4]: https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/wars-and-memories/representations-war/war-reporters\n[5]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x\n[6]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.6?seq=26\n[7]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.7?seq=2\n[8]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.14\n[9]: https://medium.com/lantern-theater-company-searchlight/i-became-addicted-to-it-the-danger-of-war-correspondence-9e11e3328665\n[10]: https://www.npr.org/2012/02/23/147290996/for-war-reporters-the-risks-of-going-solo\n[11]: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/they-are-not-fixers-they-are-journalists-light-war-ukraine-three-field-producers-discuss\n[12]: https://oxfordre.com/communication/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-791\n[13]: https://cpj.org/resources-for-journalists-covering-conflict/\n[14]: https://www.ifj.org/fileadmin/images/Live_News_versions/Live_News_EN.pdf\n[15]: https://www.icfj.org/news/ethical-tips-journalists-reporting-conflict\n[16]: https://www.voicesofyouth.org/blog/conflict-journalism-dangers-pursuing-truth-0\n[17]: https://www.thomsonfoundation.org/latest/a-practical-guide-for-journalists-reporting-in-ukraine-and-other-conflict-zones/\n[18]: https://www.icfj.org/news/safety-tips-journalists-conflict-zones\n[19]: https://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/2024/01/03/conduct-in-conflict-engagement-with-citizen-journalists-in-war-zones/\n[20]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1750635220987746\n[21]: https://en.unav.edu/web/bebrave/pensar/los-deberes-y-derechos-de-un-periodista-de-guerra\n[22]: https://euneighbourseast.eu/news/stories/journalism-at-frontline/\n[23]: https://thefix.media/2023/6/19/whats-your-media-job-war-correspondent\n[24]: https://concept.journals.villanova.edu/article/view/555/1680\n[25]: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/protection-journalists#:~:text=Journalists%20can%20and%20must%20try,confusion%20between%20reporters%20and%20combatants.%E2%80%9D\n[26]: https://cpj.org/reports/2012/04/armed-conflict/\n[27]: https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/reporting-front-lines-keeping-journalists-safe-war-zones\n[28]: https://www.mediasupport.org/what-we-do/safety-for-journalists/\n[29]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/jane-ferguson-details-career-reporting-in-war-zones-in-memoir-no-ordinary-assignment\n[30]: https://www.rct.uk/collection/exhibitions/roger-fentons-photographs-of-the-crimea/the-queens-gallery-palace-of/writing-about-the-war\n[31]: https://research.kent.ac.uk/victorianspecials/exhibitionitem/william-howard-russell-1820-1907/\n[32]: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/research/spotlight-research/how-irishman-william-howard-russell-invented-modern-war-reporting\n[33]: https://www.blind-magazine.com/news/albert-londres-fighting-for-truth-with-pen-and-photography/\n[34]: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20231126-albert-londres-crusading-reporter-behind-france-s-top-journalism-prize\n[35]: https://web.archive.org/web/20130907135031/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/22/marie-colvin\n[36]: https://mariecolvin.org/about-marie\n[37]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47082088\n[38]: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663571722/a-new-biography-of-marie-colvin-eyewitness-to-war\n[39]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/03/marie-colvin-murder-verdict--risks-journalists-lindsey-hilsum\n[40]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/01/russian-journalists-killed-central-african-republic-investigating-military-firm-kremlin-links\n[41]: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/02/635046238/3-russian-journalists-killed-while-probing-reports-of-mercenaries-in-africa\n[42]: https://www.npr.org/2018/04/21/604497554/why-do-russian-journalists-keep-falling\n[43]: https://www.france24.com/en/20180801-russia-journalists-killed-investigating-pmc-wagner-militia-central-african-republic\n[44]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45030087\n[45]: https://www.reuters.com/world/obituary-reuters-issam-abdallah-covered-worlds-biggest-events-with-bravery-2023-10-14/\n[46]: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-LEBANON/JOURNALIST/akveabxrzvr/\n[47]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/07/journalist-issam-abdallah-killed-by-israeli-tank-firing-in-quick-succession\n[48]: https://rsf.org/en/rsf-video-investigation-death-reuters-reporter-issam-abdallah-lebanon-journalists-vehicle-was\n[49]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/lebanon-deadly-israeli-attack-on-journalists-must-be-investigated-as-a-war-crime/\n[50]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/22/ukrainian-photographer-maksim-levin-executed-cold-blood-russia\n[51]: https://rsf.org/en/exclusive-rsf-investigation-death-maks-levin-information-and-evidence-collected-indicates\n[52]: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-life-and-death-of-a-ukrainian-photographer\n[53]: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/2023-alarming-increase-journalists-killed-conflict-zones\n[54]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/30/across-the-world-journalists-are-under-threat-for-sharing-the-truth#:~:text=Last%20year%20saw%2099%20killings,that%20important%20stories%20go%20unreported\n[55]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.14?seq=4\n\n<!-- youtube:3Z5tmWVqy0I -->"
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datePublished: 2026-03-04
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<!-- aeo:section start="lede" -->
Across the world, many thousands fight for their survival in the most dire of circumstances. From the trenches and open fields of Ukraine, to the bombed-out crucible that is the Gaza Strip, to largely forgotten corners of the world like Myanmar, Kurdistan, Sudan, and the Sahel, many battles rage at any given moment. Every time bombs explode, or tank cannons fire, or soldiers fire their weapons, a story develops, and almost always, many individual stories will end, in the blink of an eye. But amidst the danger, amidst the fear and turmoil, the stories that come and go are all but entirely destined to be lost to history. The danger is too great to justify cataloguing them; the lives that end do so in a hail of bullets; and in such terrifying places under such hostile conditions, making it home is a luxury at the best of times, and an impossibility at the worst. But on the ground, amidst the most brutal conflicts on Earth, a brave and select few still forge ahead, to tell the world what they can, and warn the world of what they must. They are conflict journalists, war correspondents, and it is their chosen profession to follow the carnage and bloodshed, to expose the truth of what happens in the worst places on Earth. It is a thankless task, a job that requires sacrifice and hardship far greater than most, and one that can put a lone, unarmed journalist at odds with some of the deadliest and most ruthless armies on the planet. Yet despite the danger, a select few still pursue their calling within the fog of war.

<!-- aeo:section end="lede" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="key-takeaways" -->
## Key Takeaways
- Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions establishes that journalists in war zones must be treated and protected as civilians, provided they do not take part in hostilities.
- Some 1,400 journalists were killed between 1997 and 2014 according to the International Press Institute in Vienna, the majority of whom were war correspondents.
- William Howard Russell, born in 1827, is widely considered the first modern war correspondent for his twenty-two months of reporting during the Crimean War, including the Siege of Sevastopol and the Charge of the Light Brigade.
- Marie Colvin was killed in Homs, Syria, on February 22, 2012, alongside photojournalist Remi Ochlik in what was believed to be a deliberate bombing of their safe house.
- Three Russian journalists—Orkhan Dzhemal, Alexander Rastorguyev, and Kirill Radchenko—were killed in 2018 in the Central African Republic while investigating the Wagner Group.
- Ukrainian photojournalist Maks Levin was found dead on April 1, 2022, near Kyiv, and Reporters Without Borders concluded he was tortured and executed while wearing his press jacket.

<!-- aeo:section end="key-takeaways" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="what-is-a-war-correspondent" -->
## What Is a War Correspondent?

At its most fundamental level, the role of a war correspondent is straightforward, albeit very daunting. Whomever they may work for, wherever they may go, a war correspondent's role is to travel to active conflict zones and provide on-the-ground coverage for whatever happens there. They may do their work through the written word, cataloguing conditions and conversations, and sending their stories along to news bureaus halfway across the globe. They may do it via photojournalism, providing context where necessary but letting the sight of human devastation tell its own story. Or they may do it in film, documenting the things they do or the people they meet in real time. But whatever the medium, the core objective remains the same: travel to places where war and conflict have forced the rest of the global media out, and report back on what you find. To do that, war correspondents must report from an ambiguous perspective, in the vast majority of cases. The journalist, their life, their experience, is not the story, and their recollections of war are important not because they're that person's recollections, but because human observation of war is the only way for others to learn of what's happened in some far-flung place. While a war correspondent will always filter their observations and their environment through the lens of their own humanity, that is, in many ways, an imperfection of the act of reporting on war, not a feature. Sometimes, of course, that more narrative perspective can be helpful; as Sorbonne University's Digital Encyclopedia of European History put it: "Their ground-level narrative, built around a series of anecdotes, cuts across grand historical narratives, even if this also means embellishing them, and participating henceforth in the construction of myths." At other times, such a filter is unnecessary, or even a waste, be it in order to present as unadulterated and minimally biased an account as possible, or to spread urgent news when there is simply no time to wax poetic. Ultimately, no matter what kind of narrator a war correspondent is, their relationship to the conflicts they cover can only work one way. They cannot be the spokesperson for just one side; after all, that would mean that they aren't a war correspondent, but a propagandist. Instead, they are the spokesperson for the conflict itself, reporting on the goings-on, and, at least broadly, leaving it to somebody else to do the framing of that information later.

<!-- aeo:section end="what-is-a-war-correspondent" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-many-dimensions-of-conflict-reporting" -->
## The Many Dimensions of Conflict Reporting

While the fundamental duty of a war correspondent is consistent across organizations and across conflicts, the work of a war correspondent can be incredibly diverse. That reality goes far beyond a journalist's chosen medium—whether they're giving their information via the written word, or in documentary form, or in podcasts, or whatever else. Some conflict journalists report on the tactical level—reporting, for example, on battles and skirmishes as they happen, and traveling from place to place in order to collect accounts and be witness to what happens there. They might do that reporting while embedded with a military unit, or by responding to leads on where a battle will take place, or by going it alone and trying to be in the right place at the right time. Alternatively, a journalist can work on a strategic level, trying to access the decision-makers in a given conflict, and keeping a pulse on different aspects of a war at once in order to see it all play out. Some report at the front lines, while others may report on the home front, or on areas impacted by surprise in brutal asymmetrical warfare. Others may not be focused so much on following soldiers, as they are on following the money, and unveiling the root causes of conflict that so often go unseen. When they do work at or near the front, some journalists might focus on the troops doing the fighting, while others might focus on the civilians caught in the middle. Most of the time, a journalist will engage in more than one of those reporting types over the course of an assignment, following stories wherever they lead and doing their level best to report what they find. Luckily for those who pursue a career as a war correspondent, their protection is ensured under the Geneva Conventions, with firm and well-established standards meant to draw a line between correspondent and combatant. Per Article 79 of Additional Protocol I, the Conventions establish that journalists in war zones must be treated as civilians, and that they must be protected as any other civilian would be—provided, of course, that they do not take part in hostilities on the ground. Journalists are expected to be issued identification cards from the nation that they reside, clearly indicating their status as a journalist and the citizen of a foreign country. They are to be protected from the effect and impact of hostilities, and in the event that they are captured, they are to be exempted from "arbitrary measures" that their captors would otherwise take with imprisoned individuals, such as torture or extrajudicial execution. While embedded journalists, accompanying military units, are in somewhat more of a grey area in practice, they, too, are considered by most nations to be civilians, and in the event that journalists are captured, they are to be treated by all nations with the same high expectations as those afforded to the treatment of any other prisoners of war.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-many-dimensions-of-conflict-reporting" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-dangers-and-motivations-of-war-correspondence" -->
## The Dangers and Motivations of War Correspondence

Like any other job, the reality is far more messy than what a person might read about in a LinkedIn posting, and in the case of war correspondents, the reality often is far more dangerous than they may have first imagined. Author Greg McLaughlin wrote in his 2016 book, The War Correspondent: "The job of the war correspondent is defined by the risks and dangers involved with getting the story: death, injury, kidnap, harassment and imprisonment, among others." As McLaughlin cites from the International Press Institute in Vienna, some 1,400 journalists were killed between 1997 and 2014, the majority of whom were war correspondents of some kind. For conflict journalists, acceptance of that risk is a prerequisite, although there's more than one way to come to peace with it. Some do it by taking extra precautions for their continued safety, others embrace gallows humor or make preparations for the worst in order to reconcile the possibility, and others take the perspective of English television journalist Lindsey Hilsum: "We're all supposed to be in danger all the time and we're all supposed to be traumatized and in need of psychotherapy because of all the dangerous things that we do. I mean, it's bollocks! We choose to do this and it is sometimes dangerous but so are lots of other jobs. Nobody forces me to do this." As for the question of why a person would take up war correspondence, that answer is a highly varied one, too. Many conflict journalists are thrill-seekers, and some are described that way whether they'd agree or not. Others aspire to the role, having grown up on war correspondence from World War II and eventually becoming a journalist at work in Vietnam. Still others stumble their way into the role, sometimes because they've already been journalists but happened to find their own country at war, and some because they took a job when offered to them. Many of them are there for the study of war itself, or for their deep and fundamental convictions of the importance of sharing the stories they write, no matter how difficult they may be to collect. And some are there for the glory. The iconic American journalist Walter Cronkite wrote: "Nothing in the field of journalism is more glamorous than being a war correspondent."

<!-- aeo:section end="the-dangers-and-motivations-of-war-correspondence" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="work-and-life-on-the-front" -->
## Work and Life on the Front

For a person looking to work as a conflict journalist, the one constant is acceptance of risk. Sometimes, that's accepting the risk of getting shot at or getting stuck in the territory of a bloodthirsty armed force—but the risk starts long before that, and in fact, it starts as early as the moment a person agrees to report from active conflicts. For a war correspondent, being assigned to a conflict is a process in which there's only so much ability to exert control. If the hot-button war of the moment happens to pop up in, say, Taiwan, then congratulations to the correspondent, they're headed to Taiwan. If multiple conflicts are raging at once, as they so often are, a journalist is more likely to be assigned to the conflict that gathers the greatest public interest, than the one they feel is most important or most urgently in need of coverage. Independent journalists have a bit more latitude to go where they please, but although they may collect stories on a conflict, there's no guarantee anybody wants to hear them, introducing yet another level of risk that such a dangerous endeavor might be for very little reward. A guidebook published by the International Federation of Journalists lays out the importance of proactive safety measures: "A journalist who puts him or herself needlessly at risk is behaving in an unprofessional manner; one that could ultimately prevent the story being told or the picture being seen. Some correspondents, photographers and camera operators in war zones embrace a macho culture and a competitive urge for danger. But good journalism is about delivering reliably, not about getting an adrenaline high." The guidebook stresses that journalists considering a conflict posting ensure that they are physically fit, not just to look good, but in order to ensure that they can sprint to safety, travel on foot for hours at a time, and sleep, eat, and withstand potential disease or digestive hardship under difficult conditions. A responsible conflict journalist will do exceptional levels of due diligence to learn about the situation they're walking into, including up-to-the-minute developments on the conflict itself, and as deep an understanding as possible of the communities they'll be interacting with. Journalists are strongly encouraged to figure out whether they are the right person for a job: whether their sex, their ethnicity, or other elements of their identity might put them in increased danger, and also whether that identity may be a barrier to people speaking candidly with them in the field. The equipment they take with them must include more than just pen, paper, and protective gear, and must include everything from satellite phones to field survival equipment to whatever small goods make for the best bartering tools in a given region. They've got to be prepared to be robbed, to lose access to drinking water, to have their glasses broken or their shoes worn out, and to have not a single toothbrush, toilet, or change of clothes within a hundred-mile radius. Finally, they must work to understand the realities on the ground in a given conflict zone, including the reality that not everybody respects the Geneva Conventions, not everybody is averse to torturing and killing journalists, and not everybody is able to come home after they've gone out on assignment.

<!-- aeo:section end="work-and-life-on-the-front" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="navigating-information-access-and-personal-safety" -->
## Navigating Information, Access, and Personal Safety

On the ground, maintaining a relationship with the active parties in a conflict can be one of the most challenging parts of the job, although one of the most important. The old adage goes, "the first casualty of war is truth"—and that's for a reason. The fog of war is helpful for a military or its units, the ambiguity of what a unit or a military has done at war is critical if they're to return to their homes and communities without judgment, and the ability to control the narrative can be just as important to a war effort as the ability to control the battlefield. Inherently, war correspondents break the monopoly that a fighting force wants to have over the information space within their war, and for war correspondents to be tolerated at all, they've got to have both the impartiality to treat each side as fairly as they treat the others, and the discretion to know when and what to report, and what to save for a later time. Access is everything, and to lose access is to lose any level of insight into a war as it is fought. Next is personal safety in an environment filled with deadly weapons. The International Federation of Journalists emphasizes that war correspondents be aware of how weapons work and what they do, to the extent that they can look at a set of combatants and their weaponry and know whether they're in range, whether the people they're looking at know how to use their weapons properly, and how dangerous it'll be if those weapons are suddenly pointed at the war correspondent's head. They've got to plan travel routes, and understand both the benefits and risks of traveling with convoys. They've got to be able to get through checkpoints, understand how much punishment and direct fire their vehicles can take, and know the difference between taking cover in order to hide from somebody's view, and taking cover in order to hide from somebody's gunfire. The IFJ writes, in part: "Take responsibility for your own decisions. Do not be drawn into lethal situations by other journalists. Never carry a firearm or weapon – you lose your civilian status. If busy streets suddenly empty, perhaps you should consider a rapid withdrawal. Remember you may have to run for your life." For many war correspondents, the day-to-day job requires constant uncertainty, and constant persistence in trying to find their way forward. Many reporters choose to go it alone, without journalistic partners or security, and sometimes will functionally surrender themselves even to rebels, guerrillas, or non-state actors, where their safety is far from guaranteed. They might travel with field producers, often local journalists referred to as "fixers" who can speak the local language, leverage their contacts, and, at times, accept a great deal of risk for minimal pay. Going out on assignment in the field doesn't just mean potentially walking into a firefight; it means traveling somewhere with no food but what you carry on your person, with no guarantee of a place to sleep safely, and with no guarantee of a way to get out from wherever you're headed.

<!-- aeo:section end="navigating-information-access-and-personal-safety" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="conditions-in-the-field-and-the-psychological-toll" -->
## Conditions in the Field and the Psychological Toll

The conditions a person will stay in may be halfway decent at times, or they might be downright apocalyptic. Either way, war correspondents often don't find out till they arrive. Working in such a space, and taking the risk of seeking out a story, means surrendering control. As for what those conditions look like, they'll almost always mirror the conditions of everybody else on the ground. Embed with a combat unit, and a journalist will eat where they eat, and sleep where they sleep. Travel through the middle of nowhere to report on isolated guerrillas, and a journalist will be pitching tents, filtering water as best they can, and perhaps relying on the kindness of locals who share a word or two of a common language. Report on a city of bombed-out ruins, where electricity is scarce and the people sleep in rubble, and a journalist should expect neither a personal generator nor a hotel bed. And start reporting from inside an isolated city, only to have it encircled and besieged for months or even years at a time—and if food runs low, and the people there begin to starve, then that conflict journalist is likely going to begin to starve too. All the while, the realities of being a full-time journalist on assignment will not go away. Deadlines still need to be met, stories still need to be written and transmitted even from difficult conditions. Editors still want the sorts of stories that are going to play well, that are going to make an impact, that are going to beat out the journalism from rival organizations who may have their own people on the ground. If you're starving, if you're shot at, if you're kidnapped, if you're tortured, the people back home who employ you will certainly be concerned for your safety, but more than one war correspondent has been invited to see if they can't convert those experiences into a compelling 2,000 words for Sunday's issue. In the crucible that is modern warfare, keeping one's welfare and sanity are of ultimate importance. While journalists are ultimately the ones responsible for their own safety, and should have leeway from their employer to avoid stepping directly into the line of fire, that's not always a possibility. Every journalist venturing into a war zone must take it upon themselves to wear their bulletproof vests, to decide whether or not to carry a sidearm for their own protection, and to write their will, ensuring that it's in the hands of beloved individuals who may not ever find out whether, or how, they met their end. Many conflict journalists speak of the struggle of moderating their own psyche, balancing the desire to push further, seek out danger, and accept tremendous risk in order to get the story, and the simultaneous urge to live another day. These are people who must think carefully about whether they're there to report the day's events, or to bear witness to the suffering of those they see. They must weigh whether their humanity is best spent cataloguing the horrific reality that those people have endured, or whether their humanity might not be able to bear the act of feeling such horror, as the victims themselves felt it, and somehow keeping the clarity they need to do their work. Even for those who survive and return home, the job takes one hell of a toll; alcoholism and drug abuse are common within the profession, marriages and familial connections are difficult to maintain, and suicide rates within the community of war correspondents are high. Journalist Greg Myre wrote for NPR, back in 2012: "War correspondents have always been at the short end of the actuarial tables."

<!-- aeo:section end="conditions-in-the-field-and-the-psychological-toll" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-burden-of-bearing-witness-without-intervening" -->
## The Burden of Bearing Witness Without Intervening

Alongside that intense psychological hardship comes one other fundamental reality to war correspondence, one that is just as difficult, if not more so, for a conflict journalist to live with: you can't save everyone. In fact, most of the time, you can't save anyone. The nature of conflict journalism is not to intervene in the story playing out before a person's eyes, and in fact, to do so would put every other war correspondent around the world at risk. While a journalist on the front lines may need to protect their own lives by force, taking a side in any conflict jeopardizes the very fragile understanding that leads combatants in a war to allow journalists to peer through the veil. Fire a weapon in anger, leave the pen behind and take up with one side or the other, intervene in an atrocity or a war crime playing out before your eyes, and that trust is broken, no matter how justified in the moment. The same goes for a war correspondent's security guards, to the extent that some organizations even discourage the practice; the International Committee of the Red Cross has noted: "The way in which 'unilateral' journalists surround themselves with armed bodyguards can have dangerous consequences for all journalists." And Robert Menard, the then-Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders, said in regard to the use of private escorts during the Iraq War: "Such a practice sets a dangerous precedent that could jeopardize all other journalists covering this war as well as others in the future." Even if you survive the day, it's the impact of those actions on the next war correspondent that comes after you, the next person to put themselves in the line of fire, that must be avoided, no matter how hard it is. And despite how heart-wrenching it must be, despite all the pain that comes with a front-row seat to human destruction, the reality of war correspondence is that the subjects of a given story might not survive the day. Write a profile on a soldier, or a unit of soldiers, operating near the front lines, and by the time that profile reaches your editor in New York or London or Paris, those soldiers may have already been mowed down. Take careful, precise, comprehensive footage of the murder of civilians, and no matter how quickly you share that footage with the world, it will never bring those civilians back, even as you may have known, in that moment and ever since, that you could have intervened, but chose to document, instead. All that is not to say that intervening in such a moment would have been a better or more just option. The work of conflict journalists is far too important, and the value of letting the world know about one such atrocity may prevent ten or even a hundred in the future. But to bear the responsibility to inform, to educate, to document, instead of intervening, is an exceptionally heavy burden, and one that a successful war correspondent must be able to carry every day, faced with the constant expectation that their dedication to their craft will be tested both frequently and painfully.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-burden-of-bearing-witness-without-intervening" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="pioneers-and-profiles-in-conflict-journalism" -->
## Pioneers and Profiles in Conflict Journalism

When it comes to highlighting the individuals who have been conflict journalists, and through their work, have offered incredibly valuable contributions, there are simply too many to mention. The reporter widely considered to be the first modern war correspondent was an Irishman named William Howard Russell. Born in 1827, Russell had gotten an early start reporting on a conflict between Prussian and Danish troops as a young man in 1850, but the bulk of his work took place during the Crimean War. Across twenty-two months of reporting, Russell witnessed the Siege of Sevastopol, the Battle of the Alma River, and the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava, all the while sending dispatches that revolutionized the way the public thought about war. For the first time, methods of global communication were efficient and speedy enough that people could hear accounts of war from somebody who was there, rather than just someone making a more grandiose account of their own experiences after the fact. On the one hand, the reports were horrific to read, but on the other, they made a tremendous impact. The British public was able to exert intense pressure on the government to improve the lot of its troops and save their lives, with a care and consideration previously unheard-of, and Russell's reporting even inspired one Florence Nightingale to take an interest in revolutionizing the way that modern nations care for their injured soldiers. Just as iconic was the French investigative journalist Albert Londres, born in 1884. Londres would first work as a war correspondent during World War I, on account of his poor health making him unsuitable for military service, and over the course of the war, he would document a wide range of battlefields in eastern and central Europe. In 1920, he would find his way into the Soviet Union, where figures like Lenin and Trotsky were eager to talk to somebody like him, and the plight of the Soviet people was brought to public attention for the first time. Londres would report not just on the Great War, but on the low-grade conflicts his own country orchestrated against its many colonial holdings, raising awareness of the havoc that France had wrought on places like Senegal, French Guyana, and the Congo. And while the American author Ernest Hemingway would be known far more for his works of fiction, he was also a prominent war correspondent in his day. During the late 1930s, he covered the Spanish Civil War in detail, seeing up-close and personal as Francisco Franco's armies surged across the Spanish landscape and established their new regime. Then, he would report during World War II, and bear first-hand witness to the Normandy Landings even while sporting a head wound that required fifty-seven stitches. Hemingway would eventually take a side in that war, ending up an informal infantry leader for a village militia outside of Paris, and gaining the ire of war correspondents around the world because of his clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.

<!-- aeo:section end="pioneers-and-profiles-in-conflict-journalism" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="modern-losses-marie-colvin-the-wagner-three-and-others" -->
## Modern Losses: Marie Colvin, the Wagner Three, and Others

An incredible number of journalists have distinguished themselves in service to their collective cause, and too many have died in the act. Perhaps the most recognizable war correspondent to die during their work in the 2000s was Marie Colvin, a journalist from New York City who died in Homs, Syria, at age fifty-six in 2012. Colvin had been a leading foreign correspondent for decades, and had covered conflicts firsthand from Chechnya, Serbia, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. In East Timor, she and her reporting were credited for saving 1,500 women and children, as she stayed with them in a besieged compound for several days and reported the situation in real time to global audiences. In 2001, she lost the sight in her left eye after being caught in a blast from a rocket-propelled grenade in Sri Lanka, an attack in which she was targeted despite being clearly identifiable as a journalist. Colvin would complete her 3,000-word article on deadline before she was hospitalized, and from then on, she would don an eye patch rather than hide what had been done to her. In 2012, she would travel to cover the Syrian Civil War, reporting on the destruction of the city of Homs as it happened. On the night of February 21, she would make her final broadcast, describing indiscriminate bombing and sniper attacks against civilians, and describing it as the worst conflict she had ever seen. Hours later, she and a photojournalist named Remi Ochlik would be killed in what was believed to be a deliberate bombing of their safe house. She is remembered today as an indispensable force in modern conflict journalism; in Colvin's own words, war: "is what happens to people, and no one wants it… It's what you try to bear witness to. That makes me think you can sometimes make a difference – attempt to, anyway." A trio of Russian journalists were killed in 2018 in the Central African Republic while following the trail of an obscure mercenary group that has since become prominent in global affairs: the Wagner Group. The journalists were career war correspondent Orkhan Dzhemal, documentarian Alexander Rastorguyev, and cameraman Kirill Radchenko, traveling to the CAR to investigate what, exactly, a rumored Wagner detachment was doing there. The three were able to enter the CAR, equipped with expensive equipment and substantial amounts of cash to ease their way, but they were ambushed and fired upon by armed men, about 180 miles north of the capital city of Bangui. Although the specific reason for their killing has never been firmly established, it is widely understood that they were killed by the Wagner Group in order to prevent them from doing their work as journalists—and they wouldn't be the only ones. In April of that same year, a journalist named Maxim Borodin happened to fall from his fifth-floor balcony in Russia, after having run in-depth stories on Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the group's shadowy affairs in Syria.

<!-- aeo:section end="modern-losses-marie-colvin-the-wagner-three-and-others" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="deaths-in-gaza-lebanon-and-ukraine" -->
## Deaths in Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine

During the ongoing Israel-Hamas War in Gaza, many journalists have been killed as a direct or indirect result of Israeli operations, and others have seen their family members killed, often several at a time. Among those killed was a Lebanese journalist named Issam Abdallah. Working for Reuters, Abdallah had reported on conflicts inside Lebanon, the Syrian Civil War, and the Russo-Ukrainian War, and he had been instrumental in collecting images and documentation around the Beirut port explosion of 2020. While covering exchanges of fire, rocket attacks, and airstrikes between Israel and the non-state organization Hezbollah, Abdallah was in a group of journalists that was hit by direct tank fire from the Israeli Defense Force. Six journalists were injured in the attack, and Abdallah died at the scene. Reporters Without Borders found that Abdallah's death was the result of a targeted strike against clearly marked, easily identifiable journalists, and a United Nations report concurred in 2024. The story of Maks Levin, a Ukrainian photojournalist, is equally harrowing. Levin had reported on the front lines during the low-grade conflict in Ukraine's Donbas region starting in 2014. He had survived being surrounded by Russian forces in August of that year, and he had continued covering the war up to, and during, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But a few weeks after the full-scale conflict began, Levin went missing alongside his friend Oleksiy Chernyshov, after attempting to photograph the effects of Russian temporary occupation near Kyiv. His body would be found on April 1, 2022, and subsequent investigation would find that he was shot while unarmed, and wearing his press jacket. A follow-up investigation by Reporters Without Borders found that Levin was almost certainly tortured before he was executed, and that the friend who had gone with him was burned alive. These cases represent only a fraction of the journalists lost in modern conflicts. Each death represents not only a personal tragedy but a direct assault on the principle that the world has a right to know what happens in war zones. The targeting of clearly identified journalists—whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, or Ukraine—signals a growing willingness among belligerents to eliminate those who would document their actions, regardless of the legal protections enshrined in international law.

<!-- aeo:section end="deaths-in-gaza-lebanon-and-ukraine" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-escalating-threat-to-war-correspondents-and-the-future-of-co" -->
## The Escalating Threat to War Correspondents and the Future of Conflict Journalism

Wartime journalism today is under greater threat than it has ever been. Across the world, war correspondents face escalating danger as global militaries and non-state actors appear more willing than ever to kill and maim the journalists who might pose an inconvenience to their war effort, and are more and more fearless when it comes to incurring the repercussions that should follow the killing of journalists in cold blood. In a global order that has increasingly shown that it lacks the mechanisms to punish the killing of war correspondents, the sad reality is that the people doing this job today are far more likely to be shot, blown up, tortured, or otherwise killed as a matter of course. Belligerents on any side of a conflict have little to fear by disposing of a journalist when it serves them, and so they do, with impunity. According to UNESCO, twenty journalists were killed in active conflict zones in 2021; twenty-eight would die in 2022; and thirty-eight would die in 2023. War correspondence is a rapidly evolving field. On the one hand, the new prevalence of social media and handheld devices has had a range of impacts all at once. It is easier to become a conflict journalist if a person wishes to; it is easier to get the news to more places, and faster; it is easier to reach people in war zones; and it is easier to see where the hot zones are, from moment to moment, in order to get there and cover what's happening. But it is also far easier to track war correspondents, to find them and snuff them out, to blackmail them, and to discredit their work. Propaganda is easier to manufacture and spread; misinformation and deepfakes are easier than ever to create. At the same time, across much of the Western world, media has been forced to cut costs and cut corners—sometimes with very real impacts to the safety of the correspondents they've chosen to place at greatest risk. The rise of a social-media-driven news ecosystem has meant that it is harder to cover the conflicts that matter, especially when nobody wants to hear about them. In this moment in history, engagement rules all, and if a subject isn't compelling enough to generate attention, then it is up to a news bureau to determine whether it still warrants coverage—and the answer isn't always yes. Conflicts in Sudan, the Sahel, Myanmar, the Congo, and elsewhere often see their coverage buried toward the very bottom of the news websites that correspondents work so hard to serve, while stories from well-covered conflicts like Gaza and Ukraine dominate. Yet despite the risks, despite the growing peril and the immense hardship they face, a select few war correspondents continue to do their critical work from the front lines. The world would be a fundamentally different place without them, a fundamentally worse place, without people willing to face down mortal danger and, as author Greg McLaughlin put it, "not so much tell truth to power but spell out the truth about power." The unfortunate reality of war is that it will continue, regardless of what the world thinks of it, and that by the time the work of these war correspondents reaches any of us, it's already too late to intervene in what they've documented. But in a world where knowledge confers power, and where the first casualty of war is the truth, the work of these journalists is absolutely indispensable.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-escalating-threat-to-war-correspondents-and-the-future-of-co" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="frequently-asked-questions" -->
## Frequently Asked Questions

### What legal protections do journalists have in war zones?

Under Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, journalists in war zones must be treated and protected as civilians, provided they do not take part in hostilities. They are to be issued identification cards from their home nation, protected from the impact of hostilities, and if captured, exempted from arbitrary measures such as torture or extrajudicial execution.

### Who is considered the first modern war correspondent?

William Howard Russell, born in 1827, is widely considered the first modern war correspondent. He spent twenty-two months reporting during the Crimean War, witnessing the Siege of Sevastopol, the Battle of the Alma River, and the Charge of the Light Brigade, and sending dispatches that revolutionized how the public understood war. His reporting helped inspire Florence Nightingale to revolutionize the care of injured soldiers.

### How was Marie Colvin killed, and why is she significant?

Marie Colvin, a New York-born foreign correspondent, was killed in Homs, Syria, on February 22, 2012, alongside photojournalist Remi Ochlik in what was believed to be a deliberate bombing of their safe house. She had spent decades covering conflicts from Chechnya to Sri Lanka and was credited with saving 1,500 women and children by reporting their plight live from a besieged compound in East Timor. She is remembered as one of the most consequential war correspondents of the modern era.

### What psychological toll does war correspondence take on journalists?

The psychological burden is severe and lasting. Conflict journalists must bear witness to atrocities without intervening, carry the weight of documenting suffering they cannot prevent, and meet editorial deadlines even while facing danger or captivity. Survivors commonly struggle with alcoholism, drug abuse, broken family relationships, and high rates of suicide. Journalist Greg Myre noted that war correspondents have always been at the short end of actuarial tables.

### How has the rise of social media changed the dangers facing war correspondents?

Social media and handheld devices have made conflict journalism faster and more accessible, allowing reporters to reach larger audiences and track hot zones in real time. However, these same technologies make war correspondents far easier to track, find, and silence. Propaganda and misinformation are also easier to manufacture and spread, and the social-media-driven news ecosystem makes it harder to sustain coverage of conflicts that do not generate strong audience engagement.

<!-- aeo:section end="frequently-asked-questions" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="related-coverage" -->
## Related Coverage
- [South Sudan is on Fire. Here's Why. (And More)](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/south-sudan-is-on-fire-heres-why-and-more)
- [Why Famine is Returning as a Weapon of War](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/why-famine-is-returning-as-a-weapon-of-war)
- [The Art of War: Power Projection](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/the-art-of-war-power-projection)
- [The Art of War: How Artillery Shaped Battlefields Across Centuries](https://warfronts.pub/defense/art-of-war-artillery-history-and-modern-impact)
- [Why the World Ignored the 21st Century's Deadliest War](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/why-world-ignored-ethiopias-tigray-war-deadliest-21st-century)

<!-- aeo:section end="related-coverage" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="sources" -->
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[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/war_correspondents
[2]: https://safety.rsf.org/appendix-i-protection-of-journalists-in-war-zones/#:~:text=Under%20Article%2079%20of%20Additional,no%20part%20in%20the%20hostilities
[3]: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/protection-journalists
[4]: https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/wars-and-memories/representations-war/war-reporters
[5]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x
[6]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.6?seq=26
[7]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.7?seq=2
[8]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.14
[9]: https://medium.com/lantern-theater-company-searchlight/i-became-addicted-to-it-the-danger-of-war-correspondence-9e11e3328665
[10]: https://www.npr.org/2012/02/23/147290996/for-war-reporters-the-risks-of-going-solo
[11]: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/they-are-not-fixers-they-are-journalists-light-war-ukraine-three-field-producers-discuss
[12]: https://oxfordre.com/communication/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-791
[13]: https://cpj.org/resources-for-journalists-covering-conflict/
[14]: https://www.ifj.org/fileadmin/images/Live_News_versions/Live_News_EN.pdf
[15]: https://www.icfj.org/news/ethical-tips-journalists-reporting-conflict
[16]: https://www.voicesofyouth.org/blog/conflict-journalism-dangers-pursuing-truth-0
[17]: https://www.thomsonfoundation.org/latest/a-practical-guide-for-journalists-reporting-in-ukraine-and-other-conflict-zones/
[18]: https://www.icfj.org/news/safety-tips-journalists-conflict-zones
[19]: https://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/2024/01/03/conduct-in-conflict-engagement-with-citizen-journalists-in-war-zones/
[20]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1750635220987746
[21]: https://en.unav.edu/web/bebrave/pensar/los-deberes-y-derechos-de-un-periodista-de-guerra
[22]: https://euneighbourseast.eu/news/stories/journalism-at-frontline/
[23]: https://thefix.media/2023/6/19/whats-your-media-job-war-correspondent
[24]: https://concept.journals.villanova.edu/article/view/555/1680
[25]: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/protection-journalists#:~:text=Journalists%20can%20and%20must%20try,confusion%20between%20reporters%20and%20combatants.%E2%80%9D
[26]: https://cpj.org/reports/2012/04/armed-conflict/
[27]: https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/reporting-front-lines-keeping-journalists-safe-war-zones
[28]: https://www.mediasupport.org/what-we-do/safety-for-journalists/
[29]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/jane-ferguson-details-career-reporting-in-war-zones-in-memoir-no-ordinary-assignment
[30]: https://www.rct.uk/collection/exhibitions/roger-fentons-photographs-of-the-crimea/the-queens-gallery-palace-of/writing-about-the-war
[31]: https://research.kent.ac.uk/victorianspecials/exhibitionitem/william-howard-russell-1820-1907/
[32]: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/research/spotlight-research/how-irishman-william-howard-russell-invented-modern-war-reporting
[33]: https://www.blind-magazine.com/news/albert-londres-fighting-for-truth-with-pen-and-photography/
[34]: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20231126-albert-londres-crusading-reporter-behind-france-s-top-journalism-prize
[35]: https://web.archive.org/web/20130907135031/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/22/marie-colvin
[36]: https://mariecolvin.org/about-marie
[37]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47082088
[38]: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663571722/a-new-biography-of-marie-colvin-eyewitness-to-war
[39]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/03/marie-colvin-murder-verdict--risks-journalists-lindsey-hilsum
[40]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/01/russian-journalists-killed-central-african-republic-investigating-military-firm-kremlin-links
[41]: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/02/635046238/3-russian-journalists-killed-while-probing-reports-of-mercenaries-in-africa
[42]: https://www.npr.org/2018/04/21/604497554/why-do-russian-journalists-keep-falling
[43]: https://www.france24.com/en/20180801-russia-journalists-killed-investigating-pmc-wagner-militia-central-african-republic
[44]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45030087
[45]: https://www.reuters.com/world/obituary-reuters-issam-abdallah-covered-worlds-biggest-events-with-bravery-2023-10-14/
[46]: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-LEBANON/JOURNALIST/akveabxrzvr/
[47]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/07/journalist-issam-abdallah-killed-by-israeli-tank-firing-in-quick-succession
[48]: https://rsf.org/en/rsf-video-investigation-death-reuters-reporter-issam-abdallah-lebanon-journalists-vehicle-was
[49]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/lebanon-deadly-israeli-attack-on-journalists-must-be-investigated-as-a-war-crime/
[50]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/22/ukrainian-photographer-maksim-levin-executed-cold-blood-russia
[51]: https://rsf.org/en/exclusive-rsf-investigation-death-maks-levin-information-and-evidence-collected-indicates
[52]: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-life-and-death-of-a-ukrainian-photographer
[53]: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/2023-alarming-increase-journalists-killed-conflict-zones
[54]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/30/across-the-world-journalists-are-under-threat-for-sharing-the-truth#:~:text=Last%20year%20saw%2099%20killings,that%20important%20stories%20go%20unreported
[55]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19qgf0x.14?seq=4

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