The Anzac myth and the shaping of contemporary Australian war reportage

Abstract

Australia’s World War I veterans, particularly the Anzacs of Gallipoli, are a quintessential part of Australia’s cultural imagining. Mythologised by the war correspondents of the time, refined and embellished by generations of politicians and myth makers and stripped of their shortcomings and human foibles through repeated renditions, the diggers of the ‘Great War’ continue to define duty and courage in contemporary Australian society. This article focuses on contemporary media coverage of two controversial wars – Afghanistan and Iraq – and how the news media tasked with recording those wars subscribed willingly to the politically charged ‘digger’ trope, which effectively served both to shield soldiers from any political fallout and to perpetuate the myth itself.