ABSTRACT
The distinction between the war correspondent and military correspondent is an institutional reflection of the different ways war has been reported. Harriet Ward in April 1848 published a report in the United Service Magazine of an engagement between the British Army and Xhosa warriors. The dedicated war reporter began life as a ‘special correspondent’, the title Russell preferred to use. The war specials by the 1880s had coalesced into a small group of professional correspondents and artists who mainly covered small imperial conflicts. Transformations in warfare have affected war reporting and since 1945 the pace of change has quickened. Warfare in the post-Cold War world is more complicated. Many modern wars are civil and ethnic conflicts in which it is difficult to identify the combatants. Changes in warfare, technology and the nature of the news media have demanded new skills and aptitudes, generating changes in the types of people working in the field.
