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Fighting for Facts in Bosnia |
| Section: CURRENT ISSUES / MEDIA IN REVIEW |
| Author: Sherry Ricchiardi |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/1996 |
| Size: 2,032 Words, 13,028 Characters |
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At one point, Rohde recalled that he "just flipped out" and, disoriented by fear and lack of sleep, broke into sobs.
During 15 days in Serb hands, the journalist had been marched to cells at gunpoint, threatened with execution, and given one hour to admit he was a spy.
Rohde's plight is a dramatic example of the peril correspondents on assignment in the Balkans face. Those who go beyond the ordinary to document the worst mass killings in Europe since the Holocaust are particularly vulnerable: There are no safe zones beyond enemy lines.
Yet despite many individual acts of courage, the Western media have been the target of criticism for their coverage of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the bloody aftermath that began in Croatia during June 1991 then spread to neighboring Bosnia.
Clearly, there are two emotion-charged sides to the debate.
Some argue that journalists didn't do enough to sort out who was to blame for the violence early in the war, thus blunting public opinion and the will of leading policymakers, such as President Clinton or Britain's John Major, to intervene.
Critics on this side commonly ask: What drove so many journalists to settle at the time for a neutral "all sides are equally to blame" reporting agenda? Could the bloodshed have been curbed if journ...
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...ay sent in two teams--one to cover the Americans, the other to document reports of mass killings and other horrors.
NBC's foreign news editor, John Stack, noted that the Persian Gulf and Somalia actions had taught the media some valuable lessons: "U.S. military involvement is something that's going to stop our presses, so to speak," said Stack. "It is the most important story we can tell."
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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