Our cover story at the weekend was by the former BBC reporter Martin Bell, about a visit to a country where not so long ago he was dodging snipers’ bullets. He had flown out to Bosnia when British Airways restarted its service to Sarajevo. In print and on video, he urged tourists to follow his example. I could tell you why, but he does it much better himself, so start reading, watching and listening on the Telegraph website.
His piece sent me hunting on my shelves for his memoir of the Bosnian war: In Harm’s Way — Reflections of a War-Zone Thug. This is a book that anyone in our trade could read and reread with profit – for its examination of what we are about, for its distillation of experience, and for the lessons it offers in writing crisp, vivid prose.
These are Bell’s rules of war reporting:

It is not the function of a reporter to campaign. That is for soldiers, politicians, or columnists. What we should be doing, or trying to do, is to show the situation on the ground, who is doing what to whom, and with what effects, and why. If in the course of these modest inquiries it should become clear that some grand plan… is not having even the symbolic effect that was proposed for it, then our viewers can draw what conclusions they please. Our job is to be their eyes and ears on the ground.

They are rules we could usefully remember off the battlefield as well as on.