Neil Arun didn’t want to miss a rare but risky opportunity to embed with an Iraqi police unit, hunting members of al Qaeda. But his employers -- responsible for Neil’s security -- weren’t happy. This film by Richard Pendry nvestigates how a frontline journalist balances risk and reward.
In a delightful piece for Slate magazine, Jack Shafer delves into the history of that enduring description of journalism as 'the first draft of history'. Perhaps surprisingly, his search only takes him as far back as the 1940s, to an editorial in the Washington Post - and even later for the inclusion of the the word 'rough'. He also wonders why the phrase has such power. 'What makes "first rough draft of history" so tuneful, at least to the ears of journalists? Well, it flatters them. Journalists hope that one day a historian will uncover their dusty work and celebrate their genius. But that almost never happens.'
OK, but if we accept that the meaning can be conveyed without the precise phrase we can go a lot earlier. Pliny the Younger's description of the eruption of Vesuvius is, I suggest, the earliest surviving First Draft. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries produced dozens before 1943. Try Orwell's description of the suppression of the POUM, Steer in Guernica, Gelhorn in Helsinki, Allen in Badajoz, the older Murdoch at Gallipoli. I could go on and on and on. Jack Shafer takes an excessively literal approach. The anonymous shorthand reporter who recorded the execution of Charles I, including a full account of the king's last words on the scaffold, was conscious of his duty to provide an accurate first draft. The idea precedes the phrase as plainly as human beings experienced sudden inspiration long before we called it a brainstorm. It does not matter much who invented the phrase. It is descriptive of a phenomenon that existed before it was coined. Important is only the reporter's understanding of his duty to place in the public sphere entirely accurate eyewitness testimony and authoritative evidence.