Trenches, hospitals, the common grave--there are no other possibilities.
Erich Maria RemarqueRead
To be a good reporter, writing about war, you have to write about the people. It's not about the tanks or the RPGs or military strategy. It's always about the effect war has on civilians, on society, and how it disrupts and destroys lives.
Interpretation
Good reporting on war focuses on human stories rather than military details.
Janine Di Giovanni emphasizes that effective war reporting should center on the experiences and struggles of civilians. The impact of war is felt most deeply by the people affected, and understanding their narratives is essential to grasping the true cost of conflict.
In practice
During a journalism seminar discussing the human impact of conflict.
Trenches, hospitals, the common grave--there are no other possibilities.
From now on we shall bomb Germany on an ever-increasing scale, month by month, year by year, until the Nazi regime has either been exterminated by us or - better still - torn to pieces by the German people themselves.
Then somebody suggested I should write about the war, and I said I didn't know anything about the war. I did not understand anything about it. I didn't see how I could write it
We come across thirty or so hurried graves with makeshift wooden markers. 'Private Edwards, E.', a number, and that was all. Fourteen days ago he was alive, thinking feeling, hoping... If war was a game of cards, I'd say someone was cheating.
Women are so much a part of war, even if they tend to see another side of it. To say they don't understand war is ridiculous.
I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.
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