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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lyrical questions, August 19, 2001
I know nothing about Serbia beyond what the press commonly reports. This book is the first I have read about that country. It makes no apologies for Serbian atrocities. It does, however, lyrically call journalists and journalism to task. Written in German in late 1995 for a European audience, this 82-page book applies equally to the U.S. I speak as a former journalist who, during 25 years of largely national U.S. writing, plumbed every side to every question before reaching conclusions--always over-reporting to find nuances, and often reaching conclusions only as I wrote. It was a handicap not easily overcome. That is not how many, perhaps even most, journalists work. The fault is built into the system. Editors expect reporters to have an angle before they present an idea. Without a hook, assignments are often not made. Editors will deny it, but they expect reporters to have reached some conclusion before they begin reporting, and to report to prove their points. In other words, they routinely ask journalists to put the cart before the horse--an especially troubling phenomenon in this era of political correctness. Reporters say they are after truth and good. Most are in fact after the big game, the story to make them famous, a kill. Nowadays CNN hires television actors as news anchors. You get the picture. Ironically, on big stories covered by throngs--which I intensely disliked and avoided, and which of course include wars--reporters tend to mimic each other, to sit around after they file, bragging about their prowess. The largest braggarts are also often the least talented. Institutionalized problems have a depressing effect on journalism. Few stories are black and white. But most present that illusion, although they are products of very little, if any, deductive thought. Certainly, nuances do not surface in short sound bites feeding most news wires. Peter Handke seems to know all this--and a great deal of philosophy. Serbia aside, this book shows, in near-poetic language, that things are not always as journalists portray them. For that alone, Handke's tiny volume is worth its weight in gold. Alyssa A. Lappen
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by Peter Handke
