War and the Death of News
A smoke bomb went off. Then shots were fired from buildings overlooking the square… The camera had a BBC News sign on it. Someone cried out from the crowd: ‘You are the world, you are the world, you have to tell what they are doing to our people.’
From Vietnam to Iraq, Martin Bell has seen how war has changed over the last fifty years, neither fought nor reported the way it used to be. Truth is degraded in the name of balance and good taste, reports are delivered from the sidelines, and social media, with rumours and unverifiable videos, has ushered in a post-truth world.
As modern news increasingly seeks to entertain first and inform second, the man in the white suit provides a moving account of all he has witnessed throughout his career and issues an impassioned call to put the substance back into reporting.
Martin Bell is both a former BBC war correspondent and a former MP. His previous books include Through Gates of Fire and An Accidental MP. He is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He lives in Barnet, North London.