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A review by ocurtsinger
Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq by Sarah Glidden
4.0
I'm initially drawn to Glidden's style of illustrating her comics, but what unfolded upon reading was a very powerful reflection on what journalism means and a very personal perspective on the process of creating nonfiction stories in a journalistic setting.
By reading I was transported to the personal and ethical dilemmas at stake for a budding journalist and how she navigated them (the same could be said for Glidden herself, who approached her own narration of her journalist friends with equal integrity, which I find so refreshing for the comics genre. [We need more comics journalism! This is a legitimate format!]). Obviously this message reverberates even more loudly today, when journalists are now "the enemy of the people" and any human journalist with any iota of human liberal empathy feels pressure to remain as neutral as possible or bring risk to their publication being labeled as "fake news." Woof! Don't get me started.
I also learned a great deal about the displacement of Iraqi civilians in Syria following the US invasion. I can't imagine what the situation on the ground is for some of those people that were interviewed then; in the time since Rolling Blackouts was published, Syria has also been affected by great trauma.
By reading I was transported to the personal and ethical dilemmas at stake for a budding journalist and how she navigated them (the same could be said for Glidden herself, who approached her own narration of her journalist friends with equal integrity, which I find so refreshing for the comics genre. [We need more comics journalism! This is a legitimate format!]). Obviously this message reverberates even more loudly today, when journalists are now "the enemy of the people" and any human journalist with any iota of human liberal empathy feels pressure to remain as neutral as possible or bring risk to their publication being labeled as "fake news." Woof! Don't get me started.
I also learned a great deal about the displacement of Iraqi civilians in Syria following the US invasion. I can't imagine what the situation on the ground is for some of those people that were interviewed then; in the time since Rolling Blackouts was published, Syria has also been affected by great trauma.