The C.E.W. Bean Foundation, in cooperation with the Australian War Memorial, is working to establish a permanent reminder in the War Memorial precinct of the sacrifices of those who have entered war zones to record and interpret the Australian experience of war and peacekeeping operations. Design work is in the process of being finalized in preparation for an appeal to raise the necessary funds so the memorial can be completed in time for the ANZAC Centenary in 2015.
Update: The War Correspondents Memorial project has been completed, and will be dedicated on 23 September 2015 at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
The Honour Roll lists correspondents injured and killed in action.
In 2001 Phillip Knightley delivered this testimonial as the Telstra Address at the National Press Club:
“The CEW Bean Foundation will show Australians the important role journalists, photographers, war artists and camera crews have played in portraying the nation at war including of course CEW Bean himself, without whose efforts the achievements of the Anzacs, especially those under that brilliant General Monash on the Western Front in the last desperate days of WW1, would not be known…
The tasks the Foundation wants to undertake are heavy ones. It wants to honour Australia’s past war correspondents, to record their achievements, to make their work more readily available both to the public and to those who might want to follow in their footsteps. It wants to provide a source of expertise and advice that could help make the reporting of wars as safe as is possible, while recognising that war cannot be entire without risk...
Just as Australia leads the world in so many other fields, I believe that it could achieve what other democracies have failed to do – develop a working relationship between the military and the media that would be satisfactory to both and as well in the interests of the nation as a whole.”
