War addictions keep some correspondents hooked

A male war correspondent admitted that going to war was dangerous.

He explained that he… A male war correspondent admitted that going to war was dangerous.

He explained that he couldn’t bear to send someone else in his place, because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if his replacement got hurt.

Only he could go, because going to war was his job, and no one could take it away. The risk was great, but he didn’t care.

Carrie Rentschler, a visiting assistant professor in Pitt’s Women Studies Program, described the power of war in a lecture, “Addicted to War: Masculinity and War Correspondence,” on Wednesday.

“Addiction is a way to justify what seems unjustifiable in war correspondents,” she said.

Rentschler explored the autobiographies of numerous war correspondents to find a link between masculinity and war. She found that, in many cases, myths of war are defined through acts of masculine heroism. According to Rentschler, it seems as if many war correspondents use their jobs to feed their own hidden addictions to war.

“War is like a hard drug abuse,” one correspondent told Rentschler, echoing the words of the many correspondents who compared their war addictions to drug addictions.

Rentschler used a book written by Chris Hedges, “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning,” as an example. In his book, Hedges shares his personal experiences as a war correspondent.

“In the beginning, war looks and feels like love, but gives nothing in return,” Hedges wrote.

Rentschler also brought up the idea that war correspondents tend to feel a tight bond with each other. She compared their bond to the bond of soldiers who go to war together.

Gender and the uses of power involved in gender have always interested Rentschler, she said. Some of her lecture material came from a larger project called “Journalism and Trauma,” which she is currently working on.

How members of news correspondence report on issues relating to war and trauma, in particular, grabbed Rentschler’s interest. She explained that she examined the idea of “war correspondence as a practice, not a product.”

In her closing remarks, Rentschler compared being sober, for an alcoholic, with being away from war, for a war correspondent. For both, being away from their addictions brings out their great fears of reality, she said.