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Deconstructing the Heroic Myth of the War Correspondent – Chris Ayres's 10.6094/helden.heroes.heros./2014/QM/08 Kathrin Göb 61 Deconstructing the Heroic Myth of the War Correspondent – Chris Ayres’s Memoir War Reporting for Cowards 1. The Myth of the Heroic War Mortensen notes (332). This list of famous war Cor res pondent correspondents also shows that the profession has long been dominated by men and is still “As much as I was terrifi ed [...], I also felt slightly associated with traditional ideals of masculinity, elated – heroic, in fact, for agreeing to go to Iraq” even though there are many female journalists (119). With these words, the British war corres- working in war zones today. pondent Chris Ayres describes his feelings upon his decision to report on the Iraq War for his Autobiographical texts by war correspond- newspaper, the London Times, in 2003. As this ents play an important role in the construction quote from his memoir War Reporting for Cow- of the myth of the profession. As Mark Pedelty ards (2005) suggests, war reporters not only play observes, these texts generally “portray war a role in the creation of a heroic narrative of war, correspondents’ work as frenetic, occasionally but are also often assigned the status of heroes insensate, yet ultimately heroic. Once past the themselves. As David Welch notes in the intro- obligatory self-deprecating statements of the duction to his study of war reporting, the “popular introduction, the focus turns to the reporter’s image of the war correspondent in the public im- courage, cunning, and professional conviction” agination is of a gallant, heroic fi gure bringing us (29–30). The personal accounts that journalists impartial reports from confl ict zones around the publish after the war do not present an accur- world” (xiv), and this image has been the focus ate impression of their daily working routines in of increasing scholarly attention in recent years.1 a confl ict zone (see Pedelty 39). Instead, the The anthropologist Mark Pedelty summarises authors of memoirs necessarily select some past what he calls the “professional myth” (128) of the experiences while failing to mention others; they war reporter with three catchwords, “adventure, structure and interpret these experiences and independence, and truth” (39). It is central to the thereby create a certain image of themselves perceived heroism of the war correspondent that (see Depkat 24). In talking or writing about their he is believed to be motivated by a higher moral own war experience, reporters also tend to rely cause, that he is risking his life for the selfl ess heavily on existing fi ctional and non-fi ctional aim of exposing the lies of government and mil- representations of the profession; in Pedelty’s itary and bringing the public the truth about the words, “they fi t their [...] experiences into the events of war. In fi lms and books, war report- narrative structure of traditional war correspond- ers are also usually presented as “lone rebels” ent legends” (129). In this way, the texts tend to (Pedelty 30), as acting independently and with “a perpetuate existing stereotypes and myths sur- great degree of willful agency” (Pedelty 130). In rounding the war reporter. line with the idea of the reporter as an independ- ent agent, the myth of the heroic war reporter is Chris Ayres’s memoir about his experiences in strongly linked to individual reporters who have the Iraq War, however, clearly present an excep- been assigned the status of icons, for example tion to this rule: He employs the genre to decon- Martha Gellhorn, Ernie Pyle, Michael Herr or Da- struct the heroic myth of the war correspondent, vid Halberstam.2 In addition, the “abiding cultural as will be shown in the following. Ayres was in fascination with war reporters has been nurtured his late twenties when he received the assign- by public fi gures such as Stephen Crane, Win- ment to cover the Iraq War in 2003, and – like ston Churchill, Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Heming- many of his colleagues – he had no previous ex- way, and Ian Fleming joining the trade”, as Mette perience in war reporting at this point:3 As the helden. heroes. héros. Kathrin Göb – Heroic Myth in Ayres's War Memoir 62 bio graphical note at the beginning of his book My name is Chris Ayres, and I never tells us, he worked as a media business and wanted to be a war correspondent. To Wall Street correspondent before taking over me, war reporters were a different spe- the job of US West Coast correspondent for the cies: fearless and suntanned outdoor Times in 2002, a position which mainly consists types who became Boy Scout leaders at of cover ing the Hollywood celebrity scene. Des- school, studied Latin and Urdu at Oxford, pite this lack of experience, Ayres was asked and probably knew the correct way to eat by his editor to take part in the embedding a sheep’s penis at the table of an African programme that had been devised by the US warlord. I felt a mixture of envy and baffl e- Pentagon to give a large number of journalists ment at their careers. (17) access to the American troops during the Iraq War.4 He was placed with a US Marine Corps In this humorous and exaggerated depiction, unit, which he accompanied in the fi rst week of Ayres takes on the perspective of an average the invasion. While the Times’s more experi- civilian who admires the war reporters’ heroic enced war reporters, who operated outside the deeds from afar. By describing war correspond- embedding scheme, were unable to reach the ents as “a different species”, he presents them frontlines when the fi ghting began, Ayres found as men who stand out from the masses, who himself in the middle of the action and was able are distinguished by their extraordinary person- to observe combat fi rst hand (see Ayres, War alities. In Ayres’s imagination, war correspond- Reporting, 250 and 260).5 His reports appeared ents are not only courageous, but also physically in the Times almost daily and received a lot of fi t and attractive, and they combine leadership attention.6 Nevertheless, he decided to give up qualities with intellectual superiority. The image his position as an embed after nine days with the of the war reporter eating a sheep’s penis with Marines. Ayres left his unit and returned home African warlords evokes the exotic setting of a before the American troops reached Baghdad. classic adventure tale and serves to emphasise the hero’s strong masculinity, considering that in Shortly after his return, Ayres wrote an article some cultures the consumption of genitals is be- entitled “The Story Not Worth Dying For” for lieved to increase man’s virility. the Times 2 (a Times supplement), in which he explains his decision to cut his assignment The fact that popular images of war reporters as a war reporter short and calls his premature are profoundly shaped by traditional male gen- depart ure an “act of cowardice” (5). This art- der stereotypes is emphasised repeatedly in the icle later evolved into the full-length book War text. Ayres refers to countless male war corres- Reporting for Cowards. In publishing his war pondents that he looks up to, but never mentions experiences, Ayres is part of a larger trend on any of the famous female war reporters such as the book market. A whole “surge of war mem- Martha Gellhorn, Kate Adie or Christiane Aman- oirs” (Whitlock 134) by journalists appeared in pour. His role models thrive in situations of mor- the wake of the Iraq War.7 However, Ayres’s text tal danger, endure pain and injury heroically and stands out among his colleagues’ works: As the have a tendency to display macho behaviour. To book’s title already suggests, he has written a illustrate this, he cites two famous war reporters parody of the traditional war reporter memoir. In of recent times. The fi rst one is “a lunatic called casting himself as an anti-hero, a coward “run- Anthony Loyd” (17), a Times journalist who be- ning away from [...] war” (287), he refl ects and came known for his coverage of the wars in Yu- questions popular stereotypes of the heroism of goslavia during the 1990s. Ayres describes Loyd war reporting. as a heroin addict who had left his job as a 2. Ayres’s Caricature of the Heroic platoon commander in the British Army War Correspondent for a career in journalism because, he later confessed, he saw it as a “passport Ayres begins his memoir by outlining his pre- to war”. To me Loyd’s life seemed like an conceptions about what he terms “real” war endless, heart-pounding sequence from correspondents (105). These “real” reporters, Apocalypse Now – but with no “stop” but- however, are reduced to mere caricatures in his ton to end the action. (17–18) narrative, and their description serves to draw attention to the stereotypical nature of popular Loyd clearly is what Ayres elsewhere calls a “war images of the war correspondent, as the follow- type[...]” (119), who – having been a soldier him- ing passage from the book exemplifi es: self – feels completely at home in the military helden. heroes. héros. Kathrin Göb – Heroic Myth in Ayres's War Memoir 63 world. Throughout his book, Ayres draws a par- war reporters’ memoirs in order to compare his allel between war reporters and military heroes, own performance during the war with that of his arguing that both seem to enjoy the excitement famous predecessors: “I searched for books by of battle and follow an “inverted logic” (78) which Pyle, and other war correspondents, to con vince is summarised in the formula “safety is bad, dan- myself that my conduct in Iraq hadn’t been a ger is good” (78).
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