{"id":51845,"date":"2018-11-14T14:51:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T19:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=51845"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T15:14:08","slug":"documenting-life-war-zones","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/documenting-life-war-zones\/","title":{"rendered":"Documenting Life in War Zones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Documenting Life in War Zones\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Before giving the Peter Stursberg Foreign Correspondents Lecture<\/a>, award-winning print journalist Janine di Giovanni<\/a> gave her audience a glimpse of life in a war zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A slideshow of images from Syria, photographed by Nicole Tung<\/a>, ran briefly without comment: men searching for bodies under destroyed buildings, bloodied and crying children, families making meals in camps surrounded by chain link fence topped with barbed wire.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWitnessing the extreme suffering of others and trying to relay the sorrow and the pain to the wide public is a very heavy burden to shoulder,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But she does feel it her a duty to be there and report on those caught in crossfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"War
A slideshow of images from Syria, photographed by Nicole Tung.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For almost 30 years, di Giovanni has covered sieges, genocides and outbreaks of disease throughout the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa. She said her writing has released her from trauma that regularly plagues war correspondents, and that her reporting can make a difference if the right person reads it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, she has written seven books on her experiences in conflict, and her coverage of war zones has been used by international tribunals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Di Giovanni gave the second annual lecture hosted by Carleton University\u2019s School of Journalism and Communication<\/a> on Nov. 7, 2018 at the Canadian War Museum<\/a> to reflect on her work and her methods.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"War<\/figure>\n\n\n

Holding Power to Account<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Afterwards, Rita Celli, host CBC Radio\u2019s Ontario Today<\/em> and a Carleton journalism graduate, moderated a question and answer session where Di Giovanni discussed the ways in which she learned to become better at listening, how to find fixers in foreign countries and how to stay alive in a hostile environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say that this is a journalist who has a capacity to convey the stories of human suffering with a clarity and a way that somehow manages to be understated and unnervingly vivid,\u201d said Celli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More Interesting Reads<\/h4>\n\n\n\n