ABSTRACT
The conflicts in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria are labelled post-9/11 wars. The threat posed to the war correspondent is accentuated by the willingness of many correspondents to work harder to get to the scene of the action. The digital world offers openings and challenges for war correspondents. Social media is susceptible to information warfare as activists and citizens are involved in reporting what is happening. The Syrian Civil War has its roots in the Arab Spring and opponents of the Assad regime from the outset, like their compatriots elsewhere in the Arab World, attempted to use new media technology to gain support for their protests. One of the features of war reporting in the ‘global era’ is the increased reliance on fixers or as they preferred to be called local ‘journalists’. War correspondents – and journalists in general – have been reluctant to discuss or write about emotional distress and trauma in their own lives.
