Book description
When she arrived in Iraq in May 2004 as the most junior member of the
Washington Post
bureau staff, Jackie Spinner entered a war zone where traditional
reporting had become impossible. Bombs were a daily occurrence and
kidnapping an ever-present threat for American journalists. Yet
"the longer I stayed, the more Iraq felt like my home," she
writes.
Tell Them I Didn't Cry is Jackie's vivid and intensely
personal story of being a journalist in Iraq -- where for nine months
she covered the war from its center in Baghdad, Fallujah, Kurdistan,
and Abu Ghraib -- and of being transformed, eventually, from a rookie
correspondent into a seasoned foreign reporter.
As she grew accustomed to the realities of living and reporting in
Iraq, Jackie found that there was as much to love as there was to
fear. The frenetic and grueling pace was an exhilarating challenge,
and she discovered a powerful sense of purpose in delivering the story
of Iraq. Soon, the Iraqi translators, drivers, and bodyguards that the
Post staff relied on to be their eyes and ears, and, more important,
to keep them safe, became not only her colleagues, but also her close
friends and tightly knit family. Still, security rapidly deteriorated
and Jackie describes with chilling simplicity narrowly surviving a
kidnapping attempt and writing her name and blood type on her flak
jacket before covering the battle in Fallujah.
By turns lighthearted, grave, vulnerable, and fiery, Jackie recounts
the difficulties of being a woman in a country where women are
marginalized and a journalist where the press are no longer safe. She
eloquently chronicles what occurred behind her headlines as she
struggled to preserve her sanity, and sometimes her life, while also
doing the one job in which she had found true meaning.
Jackie's account is punctuated by brief vignettes written by her
identical twin sister, Jenny, who watched as Jackie was drawn further
and further into a world increasingly fraught with danger. Every
morning she looked for Jackie's byline in the Post, knowing
only then that her sister had survived another day.
Through it all -- the violence and fear as well as the moments of
humor, camaraderie, and warmth -- Jackie Spinner brings home with
brilliant intensity and candor what it is like to report on a war
under exceptional circumstances.
"Not just a reporter's dispatch on the Iraq war,
Jackie Spinner's book is a journalistic original and a rare insight
into both a reporter's mind and the heart of a people at war. Unlike
any other chronicle of the war, this book draws the reader into the
lives of the subjects of journalism, the real people of a country in
chaos, and makes us care about them. As a journalist, I saw a side of
the story I had not yet seen. As a Marine who has spent time in Iraq,
I came away from this book caring more about the outcome of our
nation's effort."
-- Andrew B. Davis, President and Executive Director, American Press
Institute
Jackie Spinner is a staff writer for The
Washington Post and has appeared on many major television and
radio news shows. She won the Distinguished International Reporting
award from the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild for her reporting
in Iraq. Jenny Spinner is an assistant professor of English at
St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, where she teaches writing and
journalism.
