ABSTRACT
Rape has always accompanied war, but in the fighting that surrounded the breakup of Yugoslavia it finally received sustained attention from journalists. While years of feminist activism and scholarship have raised awareness about rape, in the Balkan wars the presence of women in the press corps was a vital factor in pushing rape to the top of the news. One of the reporters who covered the story was Sylvia Poggioli of National Public Radio. She spoke to Robert W. Snyder of Media Studies Journal. Public exposure was a reliving not only of the horror of the rape but of the shame and humiliation that was experienced by the woman and her entire family. The women were undergoing all sorts of problems as consequences of the war. They were refugees. They lost everything. They were far away from their homes. A lot of them didn't even know if their husbands were dead or alive.
