War Journalism & Peace Journalism

Course Catalog Description

Course designed for students to focus on primary sources to learn how past wars were reported in their own time.

Course Overview

War is society stretched to the extreme and an important time to see the world correctly, not as we wish or want it. Following a single theme of reporting—war—from before 1776 to the present is an excellent means of seeing the transformation and growth of the reporting role of journalists over 300 years, through several named eras marked by historians, through 46 U.S. presidents, and how journalists dealt with dynamic changes in military tactics and missions, and interviewed a heady mix of military leaders, civilian leaders, and citizens, as well as declared enemies. The insights gained from a thorough immersion in three centuries of conflict reporting—a universal news value—are applicable not only to contemporary reporting of conflict, but applicable to all degrees of social conflict for which society has a knowledge interest.

War journalism also provides fertile ground to explore peace journalism, an alternative to the practice of unwitting support for social violence through the routine application of journalistic conventions.

Course Learning Outcomes

Students learn to engage with primary resources to arrive at their own lessons learned and conclusions for reporting conflict—lessons and conclusions to take with them after the close of the class to apply to their own reporting methods. The final project uses primary source materials and historic commentary to write a paper on war reporting of a chosen conflict.

    • War journalism

    • Peace journalism

    • Revolutionary War

    • French and Indian Wars

    • War of 1812

    • Mexican-American War

    • Civil War

    • Indian Wars

    • Spanish-American Wars

    • WWI

    • WWII

    • Korean War

    • Vietnam

    • The War on Terror: Iraq

    • The War on Terror: Afghanistan