James Der Derian who delivered a keynote address to the ANU conference War 2.0 raised the issue of the “speed of media transmission” as a key attribute of the new media and reporting on the war, a point emphasised by Kate Geraghty, a photojournalist, in her short presentation.
Brigadier Brian Dawson talked about the new form of modern warfare, the asymmetrical theatre of conflict and the use of untruths with new media by opposing forces. He also mentioned ADF trials with embedding journalists as a way around the problems of providing safe access for the media without compromising the operational advantages of the ADF. The media is a vehicle for telling “our story”, said Brian.
Kate was unsympathetic to citizen journalism, especially citizen photography. She touched briefly on the problems unmanaged and unregulated media poses to authoritative sources such as Fairfax. This is a valid issue however as her account of photo forgery in Lebanon in 2006 illustrates, traditional media coverage is not without blemish.
Best comment for mine was James Der Derian who pointed out in war you still feel safer armed with an AK47 than armed with an iPhone.
