Frontline Reporting

Early Frontline Reporting

As long as there have been wars, there has been reporting of some sort from the front lines. Initially, this “reporting” took the form of the battle memoirs of the participants. Repeated informally and in tribal ceremonies passed from generation to generation, the oral history of every early tribe and clan is dominated by legends of heroic warriors. Those who heard these stories had no basis for comparing their version of the facts with the perspectives of others. Equal time around the tribal fire was not given to an enemy spokesman. Only centuries later were future generations able to compare and contrast competing written accounts of the battles. As literate societies began to emerge and as states began to build, accounts of battles and military campaigns were recorded in official documents and in the works of scholars. Of course, these accounts lacked the crucial immediacy that separates journalism from history.

In 1837 the advent of the modern telegraph, like many technologies that would follow, provided opportunities for journalists, but also brought new challenges for militaries and governments. Reporters’ accounts from the front lines could reach readers within hours rather than weeks and months. With greater capabilities to report came demands for more reporting and increased competition between newspapers.

Tensions between reporters and the military also increased. Military leaders accused journalists of providing incomplete, sensational, and inaccurate reporting in their haste to increase readership. Furthermore, timely news reporting enabled the enemy and wavering allies to get the news equally quickly and could exploit that information to their advantage. During the Civil War, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman considered all journalists suspect and threatened to shoot them, but is said to have sarcastically stated that if he had, “[W]e would have reports from Hell by breakfast.”

In addition to providing greater immediacy, reporting from the Civil War highlights two other issues related to press coverage that continue to this day. First is the power of visual images. Mathew Brady's groundbreaking photos did not capture the battles in progress, but they did depict the death and destruction that followed. The second issue revolves around the power of the press to shape events. For example, until the battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), European powers withheld extensive, visible support from the Confederacy, despite the costs of Union blockades of Southern ports to European economies. Most military historians now agree that from a tactical standpoint, Antietam was, at best, a draw. However, history's “first draft,” spun by Pres. Abraham Lincoln from early press reports, convinced the British to remain neutral. Those same reports gave Lincoln the public consensus he felt he needed to sign the Emancipation Proclamation (September 22, 1862).

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