And if at times the war correspondent is tempted to rebel at the entanglements in which he is enmeshed by governments , by
war departments and by censors, he also remembers that he has
profited enormously by inventions that make his work more intelligible,and that transmit it with allpossible speed .74 Mechan ical devices enable him to accompany his letters with charts, maps, plans, outlines, and graphic sketches. He thus makes clear descriptions otherwise necessarily obscure, and material that was once reserved for books becomes a part of the daily news paper. 75
Even with the censor, the war correspondent is learning that there is " a more excellent way,” and that instead of fighting him , it is better to try in advance to get his point of view since " it does not pay to try to beat the censor.” 76
If the war correspondent often finds himself in conditions that afford him
little opportunity of writing about warlike
matters, it must be remembered that he is not responsible for these conditions and that he, most of all, may ardently wish them otherwise than they are. The governments of the contend ing parties step in and practically assume control of themachin ery of collecting and distributing news. Neutral governments
consider news " contraband of war” and fear to become a party to the war by furnishing news. The War Office objects to his presence and is willing to do nothing for him . The official censor
formulates rules he can not understand and may blue pencil his most apparently harmless statements. When his despatches have passed the censor there is intolerable delay in forwarding
them .77 The magnitude of military operationsmakes it difficult 74 J . R . Robinson is credited with inaugurating telegraph service for the letters as well as for the despatches of war correspondents as far back as
1870 . - F . M . Thomas, Fifty Years of Fleet Street, pp. 166 - 167. But G . W . Smalley, in narrating how Holt White wrote the story of
Sedan , reminds his readers “ how alien from themind of the British journalist at that timewas the free use of the telegraph , which in America had become
a thing of every day.” — Anglo-Saxon Memories (1911), p. 213. 75 C . K . Shorter , “ Illustrated Journalism ; its Past and its Future,"
Contemporary Review , April, 1899, 75: 481-494. 76 W . G . Shepherd , Confessions of a War Correspondent, p . 30. 77 The correspondent of the New York Times reported a delay of one
hundred and thirty-two days in delivering a cablegram from New York to Paris . It was received by the censor December 22, 1914 , and delivered to
him May 3, 1915. - New York Tribune, May 17, 1915.
