ABSTRACT
Journalists tend to be more courageous in criticising the government when British forces are not engaged; when ‘our boys’ (and a few of ‘our girls’) are in action, most of the media tend to back it. But is this right? William Howard Russell’s famous despatches for The Times from the Crimea chronicled the failings of the army and supposedly led to the resignation of Aberdeen’s cabinet. But was he justified in sending his reports? Many commentators who stress the ‘inevitable’ adversarial relationship between the media and the military focus on Russell’s reporting. Yet how much is this myth? Phillip Knightley (2000: 16), in his seminal history of war reporting, The First Casualty, says that while Russell exposed military failures he failed to understand their causes. And while he criticised the lot of the ordinary soldier, he never attacked the officers ‘to whose class he belonged himself ’. ‘Above all, Russell made the mistake, common to many a war correspondent, of considering himself part of the military establishment.’ Moreover, The Times played only a small role in the fall of the government. An important section of the elite was determined on Aberdeen’s fall, irrespective of any views expressed in the press.
