Frontline

July 9, 2012
This adventurous chronicle from Loyn, foreign correspondent for the BBC and author of In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian and American Occupation, depicts the hardships and triumphs of conflict reportage during the 80s and 90s. Members of the Frontline news agency, an independent organization created by a cooperative of freelance cameramen, risked their lives to infiltrate the heart of international wars and report back to the world. Rather than rely on corporate backing, folks like Peter Jouvenal, Vaughan Smith, and Rory Peck developed close relationships with locals, which enabled them "to get in and out of difficult and dangerous places with pictures of a unique, visceral brilliance" and present "a story outside the box, a slice of life which looked at the conflict in a different way." Navigating high-risk areas like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, these visionaries succeeded in showing the "universal significance" of small images of "deconstructed, fractured" worlds to people whose daily lives were far removed from wartime horrors. Supplemented with maps and photographs of the cameramen at work, Loyn's extensive research, news experience, and personal ties with Frontline membersâsome felled in the line of dutyâmake this a thrilling read. Photos & maps.