An exhibition unveils the 200 foreign journalists who covered the Spanish Civil War.

Nearly two hundred foreign female journalists covered the Spanish Civil War for media outlets around the world, a virtually unknown story that is finally being revived in an exhibition inaugurated at UNESCO headquarters in Paris .

Le Secrétariat d'État à la Mémoire Démocratique et la Délégation Permanente de l'Espagne inaugurated au siège de l' @UNESCO "Elles l'ont raconté au monde", une exposition organized par le professeur de journalisme et docteur en sciences politiques Bernardo Díaz Nosty. pic.twitter.com/MMCO7s1qWm

— Spanish Delegation to UNESCO / Amb Espagne UNESCO (@EspUNESCO) July 10, 2025

The exhibition "They Told It to the World" celebrates the names and work of the 198 female reporters, writers, and photographers who chronicled the conflict from both sides, though mostly from the Republican side.

The Spanish war was "the most media-covered up to that point," thanks not only to the written media but also to shortwave radio and newsreels, explains Bernardo Díaz Nosty, curator of the exhibition, which was organized by the Spanish Embassy to UNESCO.

Throughout posters and videos, but also books and magazines of the time, one can review abundant examples of the work of these women, many of them very young , and who were, for example, the first to inform the world of the thousands of civilian victims of the retreat from Malaga to Almeria or the bombing of Guernica, both in 1937.

"This is the first time that there have been women correspondents on a large scale," a fact that has been "quite unknown" until now, despite the fact that "their contribution is important," she insists.

Díaz Nosty, a professor of journalism at the University of Málaga, highlights the specific case of an American journalist who was broadcasting on the radio from Barcelona at the time of an aerial bombing and reported live on the collapse of a house across the street from hers.

Not only thanks to the radio , but also to the transmission of photographs that illustrated the bombings that appeared the following day in the New York press . "This is a huge first for the First World War," he insists.

She explains that, in this first conflict with an abundance of female journalists , a very different approach is clearly perceived compared to male foreign correspondents.

They, among whom renowned writers such as Americans Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos stood out, focus more "on the events of war, on the material (...), on the victories, on the defeats, on the politicians, on international politics."

The correspondents, on the other hand, focus more on "the social fabric, on reaching out to those who suffer, the vulnerable , to those who die not on the front lines, but from sadness, hunger, or disease, and there are many thousands of them," adds Díaz Nosty.

They were the first to describe aerial bombings of cities as vulgar murders or war crimes.

Two of them died : the famous German photographer Gerda Taro , the first war reporter killed in the line of duty (partner of the legendary war photographer Robert Capa, who was the victim of an accident during the Battle of Brunete in 1937 and was buried in the Parisian cemetery of Pere Lachaise), and the Frenchwoman Renée Lafont , shot by Franco's forces in September 1936 near the Córdoba front.

The exhibition is based on the book They Told the World: Foreign Journalists in the Civil War , published in 2022 by Díaz Nosty, following extensive research that has brought many of them to light, as until recently there was only evidence of just half a dozen of them.

The goal is for this exhibition to also be brought to Spain to coincide with the events being organized this year and next to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the transition to democracy in Spain.

"I think it will be taken" to Spain, "because it is not only innovative but also educational ; it integrates aspects such as freedom of expression, equality, men and women, and human rights," the curator confides.

The Spanish ambassador to UNESCO, Miquel Iceta, explained that Spain organized this exhibition because it addresses three very important issues for UNESCO: equality between men and women, freedom of the press, and the situation of journalists in conflict zones.

"It also helps us recover a part of our history, which is certainly little known internationally, but also not very well known in Spain," concluded the former Spanish Minister of Culture.