Subjective Journalism: Truth is in the eye of the reporter
Joe Sacco’s style of journalism in “Gorazde: Safe Area,” reveals details of the story concerning the human element involved which other forms of journalistic coverage of the Bosnian conflict could not. An example of this element is prevalent on pages 102-103, in which the character Riki, an assimilated friend of Sacco’s, must return to the front line. Sacco’s technique in telling the story of Bosnia, particularly on these pages, is aptly juxtaposed at a later point in the graphic nonfiction novel as the other journalist request a song from Riki and his assistance in depicting the rubble. The stylistic approach to the Bosnia conflict exhibited on these pages discards the standard objective approach of coverage and shows that true coverage of any human event requires subjective appreciation for the people involved, for they are indeed the story.
An initial observation in this scene is the lack of fighting. Other styles of journalism tend to lack this ability, to disengage from the battle and focus on the people involved. Likewise, for a journalist covering the fighting in Bosnia, Sacco seems to spend a lot of space ignoring the fighting particulars: troop status, recent casualties, etc. Instead, as exhibited on pages 102-103, he often makes a point to fully avoid the fighting, opting instead to focus on the breakfast before the trip to the front line, and the human aspect of avoiding the fight. In doing this, Sacco more acutely represents the true nature of violent conflict, showing the reader that behind every statistic hides a human, like Riki or Edin, who would rather eat breakfast, sing a song, and drink coffee than trudge off to the frontline to die. All other forms of objective journalism fail to deliver this portion of the story, showing instead the mechanics of war, troop developments, which neighborhoods have fallen, possibly a brief glimpse into how the people feel with a quick color-shot, but in no way capturing the sentiment in the same way Sacco does. It is a reverse in protocol, where objective journalists focus on the fighting and briefly mention the humanity, Sacco focuses on the humanity and explores only briefly the mechanical aspects of the war. Indeed, war is in its most basic form one person killing another, en masse, and all other notions of politics and justice seem to lose importance upon this realization.
Continuing the partition from standard journalism is Sacco’s depiction of victim morale in the use of songs. The common scene I have in mind is that of a reporter standing in from of a crowd of locals, a background of rubbled infrastructure, singing a morale-boosting song, as the reporter generalizes on the people’s refusal to give up in the face of hardship. In philosophy this is referred to as the universal versus the particular, where the standard reporter objectively accounts for the general multitude, making a statement based upon a brief glimpse of a group of nameless victims, Sacco instead focuses on one particular human, named Riki, who sings in order to boost his own morale and those characters around him, with whom the reader is familiar. His songs induce laughter and glee not only of the local Edin, but of Sacco the journalist himself, who is so entrenched in the personal aspect of the war that objectivity is wholly lost. Unlike the standard reporter who stands in front of the crowd, Sacco stands in the background laughing and relying upon Edin for support (p. 103 top right). The standard reporter uses the background locals to illustrate the topic of her report, people are refusing to give up, while Sacco literally illustrates Riki’s refusal to give up, and is himself affected by this action, making it the focal point of the scene rather than the supporting evidence. It is this singing and morale boosting that Sacco is most concerned with, and it only stops when Riki is gone off to the fighting, “down a road to a mountain and a bunker and his ‘Time’ magazine…” (p. 103), which is seen only as a landscape in the distance, the details left to the reader’s imagination in this particular scene.
The reference to ‘Time’ magazine on this page refers to the fact that while on the front line, Riki reads an outdated issue of the magazine to learn English and pass the time. Though it is likely true that Riki indeed did this, Sacco’s inclusion of it in the story seems to make the point that while he is left behind, away from the front line, the other journalists focus on the front lines and fail to penetrate into one side or the other, the essence of objectivity. The journalists of publications like ‘Time’ magazine sit idly in the neutral zone, non-committal in their standpoint. Furthermore is the distinction that the issue Riki carries is out-dated, a distinctive property of every standard report the moment it is completed. The neutral reporters constantly struggle to come up with more mundane objectivity which will tomorrow out-date itself in the neutral zone, while Sacco commits to one side and waits patiently for the story to fully develop, grasping not for surface glimmer at the forefront which will tomorrow out-date itself, but immersing himself in the conflict and allowing it to grow around him until it becomes a timeless account of what happens to a human being in a war zone. The irony is thick in the reference to ‘Time’ and time, the former (and the style of journalism it represents) quickly out-dating, the latter overcome by the style of Sacco.
The composition of page 103 is similar to standard journalism in that it has as its background the city rubble, with pictures of the humanity overlaying, songs being sung, morale mustering, laughter and glee. However, Sacco composes it in such a way that as the reader progresses down the page, the landscape gradually becomes the focal point, directly at the caption, “and [Riki] was gone” (p. 103). In the standard style, the background rarely transitions into the focal point from that of the talking head, but here, the point is that down the road, as we see, lies the war. The effects of the war are clearly illustrated in the shambled town, and as Riki leaves the journalist, rather than transitioning to a story about how shambled the town is, he becomes sad. To this point the scene comments on the individual aspects of the war rather than the over-arching mechanical details normally focused upon in standard journalism. At the finality of page 103, however, is an entirely unique aspect of Sacco’s journalism. Not only are the standard reporters failing to grasp the humanity of those involved in the conflict, they are entirely unable to express their own sentiments concerning the situation. Sacco, by penetrating the surface and subjectively identifying with individuals, is now subject to his own emotional responses. Normally, this is considered to be unprofessional, as a journalist is supposed to keep her emotions under control and report upon the situation with a calculating demeanor. Sacco, instead, supports the idea that the full story is not found in the calculated objectivity, that by distancing one’s self one loses that part of the story which may in fact be the most important: human emotion. This is indeed the prominent theme of the scene, the human emotions experienced during war-time, the escapism of laughter and song, the nervous procrastination to one’s duty to fight/leave friends behind, and most of all the sadness of loss, fully illustrated with an empty landscape, a missing Riki, and a journalist on the verge of tears.
These aspects on pages 102-103, as they diverge from the standard form of journalism, represent Sacco’s opinion that in order to fully capture the truth of a story, one must acquire more than simply the objective facts. Though the objective style makes attempts at portraying the human aspect of conflicts with depictions of people singing or people crying, it means nothing unless the viewer/reader is allowed to know the subject on a familiar level. The objective reporter standing in front of an emotional crowd affects the viewer insofar as there are people exhibiting some emotion, or there is some city that is in shambles due to bombing. It says that here, on the front line, there are soldiers shooting each other, and the death count is ‘x’ or ‘y’. Sacco rejects this style, penetrating into the heart of the story and becoming himself a part of it, so much so that his emotions are a necessary part of the story. The reader knows the crowd and shares their emotions, sees the rubble and knows to whom that house belongs, loves the soldier on the front line because of his personality when he is away from it. It is this component that truly tells the story.
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