‘My Eyes Were There’:A comparative analysis of war reporters’ testimonies

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse a sample of war reporters’ testimonies in Iraq, as cultural memories rather than journalistic practices. Although journalists here may reflect on their professional practice, their primary aim in publishing these memories is to establish an authoritative narrative about Iraq as a conflict zone. The article adopts a comparative method to juxtapose four testimonies about the Iraq War by two European and two Arab reporters. The analysis focuses on the journalists’ role as eyewitnesses and how they have managed to foreground events and people absent from the mainstream media coverage of the war. The aim is to show how journalists mediate the war memory while bridging Iraq’s past and present, which calls for the analysis of journalism as an institution of creating and disseminating memories.

Keywords:

• eyewitnessing
• Iraq War
• memory
• narrative
• New Journalism
• war correspondents