First drafts of History: Rediscovering Victoria’s war correspondents

From the Boer War to Vietnam and beyond, Australians have long relied on war correspondents to bring home reports from the front lines of conflict. Rediscover Victoria’s war correspondents including Alan Moorehead at a presentation by historians Dr Fay Anderson and Garrie Hutchinson
Australia has an impressive and enduring tradition of war journalism, correspondents cinematographers, artists and photographers who covered wars involving Australian troops and major conflicts, which did not. Victoria has contributed to this roll call producing some of our most prominent journalists and photographers. My talk will examine two World War I correspondents, Philip Schuler and Keith Murdoch and a defining group who were accredited during World War II most notably Damien Parer, Chester Wilmot, and the maverick Wilfred Burchett. There are also two less well-known names who deserve our attention, Godfrey Blunden who alerted Australia to the Holocaust, and Sam White, a quixotic fellow traveller. It’s timely to reflect on war journalism, its role as the first draft of history and to rediscover some of Victoria’s war correspondents and their compelling life stories.

Associate Professor Fay Anderson is a media historian in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. She has published widely on war, journalism, oral history, the military, biography, genocide, and memory. Witnesses to War: The History of Australian Conflict Reporting was co-authored by Fay and Richard Trembath and published in 2011. Fay’s and Sally Young’s co-authored book, Shooting the Picture: A History of Australian Press Photography, will be published in August 2016 by MUP.

Garrie Hutchinson has written or edited more than 30 books including Eyewitness: Australians write from the Front-line, Pilgrimage: A Traveller’s Guide to Australia’s Battlefields, Pilgrimage: A Traveller’s Guide to New Zealanders in Two World Wars, An Australian Odyssey: From Giza to Gallipoli and Not Going to Vietnam: Journeys through Two Wars. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and also completing a PhD on those who sailed to the First World War on the flagship of the first convoy, the Orvieto.