Tell Them I Didn't Cry

When she arrived in Iraq in May 2004 as the most junior member of the Washington Post bureau staff, Spinner entered a war zone where traditional reporting had become impossible. Bombs were a daily occurrence and kidnapping an ever-present threat for journalists. Yet "the longer I stayed, the more Iraq felt like my home," she writes. The frenetic and grueling pace was an exhilarating challenge, and she discovered a powerful sense of purpose in delivering the story. 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. 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.--From publisher description.