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Chapter 4, Section 1
Does Winchester hold up William Howard Russell as a personal hero? There isn't very much criticism of him here in this section. Keep in mind that Winchester was a war correspondent and journalist from the United Kingdom himself, so this may go toward his own particular stripe of journalistic coverage.
Had Russell gone to Crimea with an avowed aversion to battle and aprofound sense that the whole fight was morally wrong and shouldbe brought to an immediate halt, one might fault him and declare himto be a Victorian example of modern advocacy journalism
his journalism exposed military error and ineptitude only whenhe found it,
The attack did nothing to dimRussell’s reputation; he returned home, acquired more fame, amodest income, a mistress, and later an Italian countess for a wife,won a knighthood and was invited initially into a social circle thatincluded the Prince of Wales, though he fell out with them aftercomplaining privately about the depravity of some of the circle’smembers.
Even in William Howard Russell's day, the Prince of Wales kept some dodgy company.
The first proper war correspondent was a jolly, well-fed, clubbablecard-playing Irish bon vivant from County Limerick named WilliamHoward Russell.
William Howard Russell was one of the first foreign war correspondents. He was particularly known for his coverage of the 1850's Crimean War; his descriptions of the wounded there urged the arrival of Florence Nightingale.