The First Casualty

by Philip Knightley

It’s a pretty terrifying book for an editor to read, but I think it’s essential reading for anyone sending reporters into war. I think modern editors tend to feel quite superior to their predecessors, the ones who sent official reporters to the First World War, whose job was nothing but to make sure that people at home felt that everything was OK. We don’t do that any more. It’s useful for an editor to read this book. It will not help you avoid every mistake. Some of these mistakes are woven into the very fabric of producing a newspaper.