George Esper, a former war correspondent and current West Virginia University journalism professor, represented the University at a ceremony honoring journalists killed covering the Vietnam War, as well as police, firemen and other victims killed in the recent terrorist attacks.
Esper covered the Vietnam War for 10 years for the Associated Press and now holds the Ogden Newspapers Visiting Professorship. He spoke at the Oct. 7 Eddie Adams Workshop XIV in Jeffersonville, N.Y. Adams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, whose picture of the execution of a South Vietnamese prisoner during the war, won him the Pulitzer. He is now a special correspondent with Parade magazine.
Many of the journalists killed while covering the Vietnam War were Esper’s and Adams’friends and colleagues.
``From Homer to Ernest Hemingway, there have always been those who reported and photographed the horrors and heroism of war,’‘Esper told the photojournalists. ``For them, their journalistic calling and the challenge transcends everything else.’‘
Referring to U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan launched just before the memorial ceremony began in retaliation for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington, Esper said: ``And now, photographers face another challengecovering a new and dangerous war against terrorism launched today with U.S. air strikes against Afghanistan.’‘
He added, ``Those courageous photographers we remember and those who go in harm’s way today sit in the front row seats of the battlefields, assuring them an eternal membership in one of the most exclusive clubs in the worldthat of combat photographer,’‘Esper said.
``War propelled them into harm’s way with the only weapons they ever knewtheir cameras,’‘Esper said. ``Their courage, their words and their photo and television images are a monument to journalistic excellence and an inspiration to all of us.’‘
As a result of the terrorist attacks, Esper is designing a course on the role of the journalist in war to be offered in the spring semester.
