Claudia Doman
17 April 2015: As Australian TV viewers learn about the work of war correspondents 100 years ago in a mini-series screening this weekend, there is an opportunity to reflect on the role of today's journalists in shaping and defining the Anzac story, a University of Canberra academic said.
The two-part pay television drama mini-series, Deadline Gallipoli, airing this coming Sunday is "a timely reminder of the role that journalists have played in telling the Anzac story," adjunct associate professor Sharon Mascall-Dare said.
Dr Mascall-Dare is the author of the Anzac Day Media Style Guide, which in its fourth year has been named the 2015 Anzac Day Media Style Guide - Centenary Edition. The style guide provides guidance to journalists assigned to cover Anzac Day.
The Centenary Edition has been widely adopted by newsrooms and journalism departments throughout Australia, with students at the University of Canberra among the first to use it.
"The Anzac Centenary is a once-in-a-century opportunity for Australian journalists to define the meaning and relevance of the Anzac story for audiences who come from a diverse range of backgrounds and standpoints," the Adelaide-based academic said.
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Journalists still have a responsibility to tell the Anzac story right. Stock Image
Her research, which informed the style guide, explored the role of the Australian media in defining the memory of Anzac Day. "During my work, I found evidence of cliché, 'cut and paste' and a lack of originality in Anzac Day coverage. I also found that journalists were sometimes inadequately resourced and supported."
"This year it is crucial that journalists are given the resources and the support to do their job well in generating richer, deeper coverage - avoiding the repetition and cliché of previous years."
Dr Mascall-Dare said that diversity is
already being reflected in the sheer volume of stories being told: the concept
of '100 stories' has been taken up by a range of news outlets.
The '100 stories' theme has also been taken up by the Australian Defence Force
and the National History of Anzac Day Research Project, which has a
long-standing '100 stories' project marking the Anzac Centenary.
"The outcome of the '100 stories' format has been a focus on individual stories, rather than one narrative. That said, there is still room for further diversity including multicultural perspectives and narratives. There's also room for recognition of complexity and contradiction: stories that challenge our assumptions about the experience and legacy of war," she added.
Dr Mascall-Dare said that although different, today's generation of journalists face as many challenges as those faced by war correspondents during the Great War.
"It took two weeks for British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's defining first despatch from the Gallipoli landings to appear in the Sydney Morning Herald on 8 May 1915. His words, alongside the 'embedded' reporting of Charles Bean and despatches from other journalists defined the way that Australians understood and remembered the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign," she said.
"Today's journalists are armed with technology which brings increased pressures as well as opportunities; they are expected to file more quickly and prolifically than ever before," she said. "Despite the speed of technological change, the responsibility of journalists to get the story right has not changed."
