Deadline Gallipoli - Part 1 (ATOM Study Guide)

Deadline Gallipoli is the powerful story of four war correspondents – Charles Bean, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, Philip Schuler and Keith Murdoch – whose job it was to report on the events that unfolded on the shores of Gallipoli in 1915.

These were the first truly embedded war correspondents whose defiance ignited a change in the campaign's course and whose commitment to the stories of the men turned the war from a strategic failure into a triumph of the human spirit.

The series is an epic tale told through personal journey. The journalists come to realise how much the war strategy has been mismanaged by those in command and how little information is being communicated back to the British and Australian governments about the true state of the campaign.

As the atrocities, defeat and horror mount, the journalists are subjected to tough and often bizarre levels of censorship. Unable to report the truth, they nevertheless must witness it. Worse, their doctored articles back home are used to entice young men to sign up and fight.

As the war correspondents become entrenched in the bloody conflict, we become their intimates. They are flawed human beings, dedicated, at times arrogant, but each is profoundly affected by the bravery and wholesale slaughter. Though it is understood that truth may sometimes be a necessary casualty in war, as the campaign drags on some of the journalists take desperate action – they risk their jobs and their lives to break the rules. This act of disobedience will change history.

Curriculum Applicability:

Deadline Gallipoli is suitable as a classroom resource for middle and senior secondary students in the subject areas of Australian History, English and Media Arts.