December 26, 2001
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@sa.ucsb.edu

CNN war correspondent Siobhan Darrow delivers lecture “Flirting with Danger: Confessions of a Reluctant War Reporter” at UCSB

Summary Facts:

• Siobhan Darrow lecture: “Flirting with Danger: Confessions of a Reluctant War Reporter”
• Former Emmy nominated CNN correspondent
• Has reported from world hotspots such as the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Central Asia and the Middle East
• Monday, January 28
• 8 pm / UCSB Corwin Pavilion
• Free event
• Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

Siobhan Darrow, former CNN correspondent, will deliver the free lecture “Flirting with Danger: Confessions of a Reluctant War Reporter” on Monday, January 28 at 8 pm in UCSB Corwin Pavilion. Darrow has reported from numerous hotspots including Chechnya, the Balkans, Northern Ireland, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Anchor Books will release Darrow’s memoir, Flirting with Danger: Confessions of a Reluctant War Reporter on January 8, 2002. The book explores her thrilling career as a cable news war correspondent, based at CNN’s bureaus in Moscow and London. Her keen eye focuses on details like the Moscow car dealership that doubles as the state-run bookstore in the collapsed Soviet Union or the Croatian women running from their shopping when shelling begins, their Italian-made finery splattered with blood. But beyond her moving and insightful first-person narration from the frontline of geopolitics, Darrow also tells us her personal story, in particular what drove her to put herself consistently in harm’s way. She details her troubled family life, growing up on food stamps with an absent father, her failed romantic attachments, including a six month affair with Ted Turner, and the ticking of her biological clock, which led her to a sperm bank. Former photojournalist and current Dateline producer Deborah Copaken Kogan writes, “With quiet courage and poignant candor, Siobhan Darrow rips off her TV mask and shows us her soul: confused, curious, at war with itself, brimming with love, and desperately human.”

Darrow’s burgeoning career also parallels the success story of CNN. In 1986 she began at the network as a tape logger, a decidedly unglamorous entry-level position. She befriended a fellow low-level worker, then a secretary, Christiane Amanapour. The pair would eventually team up to cover the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992. Darrow also was one of the early producers of CNN’s World Report, on which broadcasters from all over the world sent their own reports, leading to programming that provided global perspectives often absent from the airwaves. About those days Darrow writes: “I thought World Report was visionary, one of CNN’s greatest strengths...I thought it an important symbol of CNN as a forward-thinking, global station. The job felt like a gift, tailor-made for my sensibilities.”

This talk by Siobhan Darrow is presented as part of the lecture series Global Peace, Security and Human Rights by UCSB Arts & Lectures, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, the UC Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, the UCSB Global Peace and Security Program, and Global and International Studies. Additional support has been provided by the UCSB Women’s Center, Santa Barbara Committee on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, PAX 2100, International Students Association at SB City College, and the International Studies Program at Ventura College.

Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, books by Darrow will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.