A haunting video tribute showing the photos of more than 800 journalists killed while pursuing the news. It was put together by Newsuem, the Washington DC museum dedicated to news and journalism.
A salute to fallen journalists
A haunting video tribute showing the photos of more than 800 journalists killed while pursuing the news. It was put together by Newsuem, the Washington DC museum dedicated to news and journalism.
article-article-bodyAbout the Author
Publication
Crikey is Australia's leading independent source of news, investigations, analysis and opinion.
Haunting.
There are a few at Ltd News that should be on the list.
Many war photographers are obsessed with death, they resemble a matador in the bull ring. They court the horns of the bull, drawing him closer and closer to them. And circling the animal close around their bodies. The really mental cases among them do things like going aboard an aeroplane to film the battle below them. They can get killed that way. Especially during WWII when fighter and bomber planes had little more than a sheet of glass between the bombardier and the enemy planes sniping at them.
The famous Australian WWII war photographer, Damien Parrer’s relatives claimed it was his religion-Catholic- that enabled him to continually risk his life. In the research I did for a thesis I did on war photographers I discovered that the thought he might be risking other peoples’ lives as well as his own just did not occur to him. I was going to publish my thesis but when I submitted it to, an uncle/cousin, whatever, he claimed that an elderly relative would have the vapours and or a heart attack if she read the article. Using this as an excuse he threatened me with legal action. This was fair enough. After all there’s no greater ‘sufferer’ than an obsessive Catholic Christian.
Damien Parrer lost his life covering an American battle on an island in the Pacific. Another famous Australian war photographer was Neil Davis, he was known by the soubriquet Death-Wish Davis, or Suicide Davis-who described Damien Parrer as being crazy. Neil Davis’ coverage of the fall of Saigon was memorable war photography. He got the footage of the first North Vietnamese tank (843) to break through the gates of Saigon’s Independence Palace on 30 April 1975. It is memorable footage. Also he was the first documented person to speak to the North Vietnamese battle commander.
Davis was so besotted with courting death that he rushed to cover a Thai coup d’état on Monday 9 September 1985. There are many coups d’états in Thailand and he didn’t need to cover it. However, he did, and he died, by tank fire in Bangkok. War reportage has claimed about eight hundred according to this article. They came from many nations, and lost between this eight hundred, it is not always known that two of them were Australian.
I just thought someone may be interested.