With the help of retired Navy Capt. Brayton Harris, who has written about the history of war reporting, NPR's Robert Siegel traces the ever-increasing speed with which news reports from the frontlines have been brought to the public. This week, Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld commented on the difference between today's satellite pictures of battle and the newsreels of World War II, which presented the week's news, not the moment's action. We follow war-reporting history from the Mexican War through the 1991 Gulf War.
Copyright 2003 NPR