Some people say the reports from the Western press were pro-
Muslim, that we focused on Serbian atrocities in graphic detail
because of that. I was pro-nothing when I started. If I had any kind
of bias going in, it should have been against the Muslims, because I'm
Jewish. That's why I make it very clear in the book what I knew
when I started covering the war, which was very little, and what I
didn't know, which was a lot. The judgments that I came to were
based on my own experiences, not my family history or any Western
bias.
RH: At the core of this book is a fascinating question: how do you
cover an event like the war in Bosnia and process that information
day in, day out?
PM: You just do. You process it as quickly as you can, and you
try not to dwell on it too much, but you do anyway. In America, life
is clearer and simpler and less dramatic, but the boundaries of what
we can endure aren't just what happens to us in America. We can
endure quite a bit more. Being in a war zone, reporting on what's
going on there, is well within the realm of what you or I can cope
with. We just don't have to cope with it in our normal experience.
RH: Does it push your journalistic objectivity to the breaking
point?
PM: I don't even know what the rules of objectivity are
anymore. There's absolutely no way that the rules as they're taught
in journalism school can apply to a situation like the one in Bosnia.
You're told not to take sides, not to answer if you're asked about
your own beliefs. That's good if you're talking to politicians in
America, but if you're in a place like Bosnia.... It's as if you're in
Berlin in 1941, and you're sitting there interviewing Jews, who live
with fear in every pore of their skin. You can't just remain neutral
when they ask you what you think. There's no way you can remain
unmoved, no way you can continue to contain your feelings.
When the Jew in Berlin or the Muslim in Sarajevo turns to you and
asks you how you can stand by and let this happen, there's no way
you can say, "I can't answer that. I don't want to get involved." You
have to answer, and you have to answer honestly, and there's
nothing wrong under those circumstances in saying that what is
happening is madness and that the reactions of the outside world are
shameful.
RH: At what point did you realize that you had more than an
ongoing series of newspaper dispatches and decide that there was a
book to be written here?
PM: I don't remember a particular point. For a long time, I've
thought that it would be nice to write a book, but that's what every
journalist says. I don't recall thinking about it while I was covering
the war, mainly because I was so focused on writing the newspaper
stories themselves. I think I first had the idea when I began covering
the peace negotiations in Geneva. I just realized that there was so
much I wanted to say that had not been said, or had not been
presented in a coherent picture. I was mad that people in America
hadn't gotten the message., and I decided that I had to give it a
shot.
