Many mass media, declaring themselves "independent", began to interpret this status exclusively in their favor. The interests of society, the state, and the army are often simply not taken into account. Coverage of recent events in Chechnya is an eloquent example of this. Meanwhile, the historical experience accumulated by both the Russian and foreign armies shows that properly established cooperation between the command and the media allows us to successfully solve many issues: ensuring favorable public opinion, strengthening the morale of our troops, exerting psychological influence on the enemy and its disinformation, etc. In this regard, the study of both foreign and domestic experience of such work, which dates back to the last century, cannot but be of some interest. Despite the fact that the journalistic profession belongs to "one of the ancient ones", nevertheless the position of "war correspondent" appeared for the first time only during the Eastern War of 1853-1856 in the British army. It was an employee of the Times newspaper, W. Russell, who became famous for his reports from the Crimea. But the Russian press at that time was forced to be content only with official reports. The current censorship rules prohibited editors from publishing military information obtained from any sources other than the Russian Disabled central military newspaper. Distinctive badge of a war correspondent during the Balkan War However, after the war, in the course of large-scale reforms, the Russian government made some changes in censorship policy. On May 12, 1862, the "Provisional Rules on Censorship" were published, according to which the boundaries of publicity were expanded when discussing various public and political issues. At the same time, the document noted: "In articles relating to the army and military administration, do not allow anything at all contrary to the importance that our army has under the laws of the state; nothing that can weaken the public's respec ... Read more