The advent of new technology revolutionised the role of the reporter in the 20th century. It was a time of breakneck social change, punctured by two devastating world wars and a string of violent and seemingly endless struggles for power and supremacy. We see the Congo, exploited for its rubber and ivory, at the beginning, and Rwanda, a genocidal bloodbath, at the end. Jack London gives a vivid account of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Jeffrey English describes the work routine for POWs on the Burma railway.
We have women as witnesses - Florence Farmborough nursing on the Russian front, Theodora Fitzgibbon describing the London blitz - and women as a force for change - Rosa Parks taking her place at the front of the bus, Rachel Carson sounding the warning bell for the environment.
Thanks to the march of technology, the immediacy of communication - cameras, videos, the internet - the sheer wealth of eyewitness record is now overwhelming. But the best, whether it comes from professionals like John Simpson, Martha Gelhorn and Tom Wolfe, or from the Baghdad Blogger, is still an art form in itself.
