Kenneth Morrison, Professor of Modern Southeast European History at De Montfort University and author of several books about the former Yugoslavia, and photojournalist Paul Lowe, Course Leader of the Masters program in photojournalism and documentary photography at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts, have provided a riveting account of journalism during the siege of Sarajevo (1992–96). This volume may be the first to tell the “story within the story” of the reporters witnessing the siege by undergoing some of the hardships suffered by the citizen population themselves. Not embedded with a military unit, as much war reporting is done now, the journalists and photographers recording the urbicide of Sarajevo were actually experiencing the carnage first hand. Some died in the process, and several found their lives profoundly changed as a result of their experiences. Morrison and Lowe document this through access to archival materials in the “Death of Yugoslavia Archive,” interviews with various journalists and photojournalists who were on the scene, and with some previously unpublished photographs provided by Lowe.
After a useful chronology of major events during the siege of Sarajevo, the authors detail how the siege was reported by foreign correspondents. They also give a fascinating account of how the reporting infrastructure was built during the siege and how it developed through the almost four years of Sarajevo's travails, as well as how the reporting of the Bosnian War may have changed war reporting forever. Several of their interviewees acknowledge that they came to Sarajevo with almost no knowledge of the situation on the ground, much less a clue that the fighting would endure for so long. For many, including the agencies that sent them there, the Bosnian War was going to be a short war, probably sorted out sooner or later by the Europeans. Therefore, some of the first in the field were younger, less experienced journalists, who had to learn the ropes of war journalism on a trial and error basis and, in the end, made the war their own, just as an earlier generation had done with the Vietnam War. The interviewees described their initial lack of useful equipment or protective gear, leading to dangerous encounters, injuries, and some deaths among the journalists and photojournalists. One of the highlights of this book is discovering how the reporters on the scene learned to cope with the danger and, if backed by a major news outlet, procured armored vehicles, flak jackets, and helmets to mitigate some of the dangers. They learned by observing where their greatest vulnerabilities were, and many of them were able to import (or acquire) the means necessary to continue their work as safely as possible within horribly dangerous circumstances.
The authors also recognize the role of the local journalists, fixers, stringers, and others, who are often overlooked in the acknowledgements of assistance to reporters. While the better supported reporters lodged in relative comfort (for a war zone), some of the less well-financed international reporters endured the same privations as the citizens of Sarajevo during the siege, including the domestic media, which gave added clarity to readers of human interest stories.
Another interesting focus of the interviewees was the ethics of reporting within a besieged city. Some journalists began to see that their role was to “give all sides a fair hearing… not [to draw] a false moral equivalence” (167). In this way, the journalists wrote the story, but also, in many respects, became the story, as witness some of the post-siege memoirs, testimonies, and, indeed, PTSD episodes revealed by several of the authors’ interviewees.
Unfortunately, the power of this book is lessened by some exceedingly sloppy editing. A few egregious mistakes are especially jarring: an author's notation to self to include a footnote, but no footnote added; lack of definition of some incidents that would not be familiar to readers not well-versed in the Bosnian War; footnotes of no relevance to their referent. One thus bemoans the decision of some publishers not to provide editors to smooth out the worst problems in the text.
Nevertheless, this reviewer enthusiastically recommends this volume to anyone who wants a more nuanced view of life in besieged Sarajevo from the perspective of those witnessing, describing, and photographing it. The ethical dilemmas of recording death and destruction, of watching the urbicide of a city that has captured the hearts and minds, not only of its own citizens, but also others who have walked its streets and encountered its citizens, is faithfully recorded here—albeit too briefly for such a large topic.
