Boer Reporting Flashcards
how long has it been since Crimea
50 years
what are the key points
- growth in influence and power of the press
- jingoistic attitude
- press used to encourage anti-Boer feeling
- exaggeration
- papers critical of war in minority and criticized as traitors
- papers lost interest once Guerrilla warfare started until conc camps exposed
1870 Forester Education Act
mass literary
churchill
- Daily Chronicle and morning post
- soldier and reported
- joined on them on a scouting mission was captured and then escaped
- war hero built on his own personal profile
- no need to sensor him he was v (+) suck up to superiors - don’t care if mouth piece of propaganda - want money
- part of the elite
- he became a soldier after escaping from Pretoria
Lady Sarah Wilson
- Baiden Powell’s leading lady in the siege of mafeking
- imperialist reports
- elite
- pro gov
- give Powell’s perspective
Hobson
- anti-imperialist
- Manchester Guardian
- imperialism a result of capitalism
- capitalistic pressure as a result of the gold in Transvaal led to war
- press made war
- critical of conc camps
- report news not sell
- believed mine owners manipulating the British into fighting the Boers so they could maxamise their powers
- he was pro-Boer
- capitalism not necessarily (-) of Government
- he was in an isolated position with his stance - changed to a degree in third phase though when people became more critical
what was the daily chronicle forced to do
change to be pro war due to poor sales
what was censorship like
- little bit not like blocking out just more influence from officers
- reporters pretty elite and so pro establishment anyway
what was roberts like
media friendly
understood it
learnt from Raglans and Russells relationship
- silver tongue
baiden powell
love media
massively sensatonalised as war hero and poster boy but he should be given credit for his work in mafeking
kitchener
less enamoured by press
he did controversial policiies but felt people should be more supportive and for the war effort
- kitchenner had a hard threat and met it pragmatically but coldly
- more leeway then Buller as everyone gonehome
emily hobhouse
reported on conc camps
- credible even tho anti-gov
- kitchener disliked her
- forced gov to take action
- appointed commission led by Fawcett to investigate - she agreed with Hobhouse
- Fawcett highly regarded - campaigned for women’s rights - credibility
what did pro-government papers try to claim about the conc camps
- that the high morality rates were the work of the Boers themselves who were constantly sniping at British soldiers in the camps whose duty it was to protect Boer children
- claimed that Boer women were not to be trusted as most of them were spies
- ridiculous line to draw
- ridiculed Hobbhouse as meddlesome spinster and that bloody woman
- but the camps were a huge British failing even though they weren’t intended to have such high death rates
discuss cameras
- now hand held and far more prevalent than in any war before
- revolutionary Eastman kodak invented in the 1980s
- the folding pocket camera with its cartridge film was the first to be mass produced
- cheap brownie camera invented in 1900 and 150,000 were sold that year
what was the new form of war reporting
- cinema
- short and silent
- bit of music
- mass market - cheap to go