Conflict and the media

Abstract

Journalists and humanitarians have always had close links. They work in the same places and, although this may be hard for some readers to stomach, they often work with the same motives. Take Florence Nightingale. In 1854, The Times' correspondent William Russell described the terrible suffering of the sick and wounded in the English camps compared with that of the French, provoking outrage in England. In September that year he asked, "Are there no devoted women among us, able and willing to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of the East in the hospitals of Scutari? Are none of the daughters of England, at this extreme hour of need, ready for such a work of mercy? Must we fall so far below the French in self-sacrifice and devotedness?" Apparently not. The rest, literally, is history. Fast forward to Ethiopia in 1984 and Michael Buerk's reporting of the catastrophic famine, or in media shorthand, "biblical famine." During his reports from the region - the first mainstream international reporting of the increasingly serious situation - Buerk interviewed ICRC nurse Claire Bertschinger about her dilemma as she chose the few who would survive from the tens of thousands of people seeking help. Cameraman Mohammed Amin filmed her surrounded by starving children, and the pictures went round the world, mobilizing a massive response and inspiring Live Aid. Singer Bob Geldof said Bertschinger was his inspiration for the original Band Aid single. "In her was vested the power of life and death," he said. "She had become God-like and that is unbearable for anyone." More than 20 years later and the footage is still cited. In August 2007, Ronan Scully, an aid worker with Ireland Goal, wrote about his recent trip to Ethiopia in the Galway Independent newspaper: "Ever since I saw the BBC's Michael Buerk's report on the famine and heard Bob Geldolf and GOAL's John O'Shea shouting at the tops of their voices for the international community to wake up to the catastrophe there, I have wanted to work in Africa, especially in Ethiopia." © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009.