The history of warfare suggests this is not a false antithesis. Governments, understandably, put a priority on nurturing the morale of the armed forces and the people, intimidating an enemy with the force of the national will. They have few scruples about whether they are being fair and just as their propaganda demonizes an alien leader or even a whole population. The enemy is doing the same to them. That is the emotion wars generate, inviting a competitive ecstasy of hate.
Authority resents it when a newspaper or broadcast shades the black and white.
Correspondents and their editors are not much inclined or able to do that in total wars of national survival, such as World War II, where a common will has formed against an indisputable evil. The paradox is that these independent reporters at times have been less at risk from their enemy hosts than from the wrath of their fellow citizens. The value of the independent correspondent was manifest in the work of Paul Watson reporting for the Los Angeles Times. His Canadian passport enabled Watson to survive the expulsions in Kosovo and he operated throughout the conflict, free of censors, though not of danger from Serbian gunmen, Kosovar snipers and NATO bombs. It makes no difference that the bombs and the planes and pilots are from your own country when it is dark and you are lying in bed under a canopy of jet noise, tense and waiting for the sudden howling that says the blast will come in seconds and be close .