Critiquing JakeLynch + Anabelle’s book and reporting the world series. In Dave Loyn’scritique of Jake Lynch and Anabelle dfdf’s book, ……….
, he shows discontent toLynch’s wording of “War Journalism”, refusing to be categorized under that termif not under “Peace Journalism”. Beforeunderstanding what ‘peace journalism’ is, one must understand what the word ‘peace’is. ‘Peace’ can be relative.
In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,people who are pro-Israel can see that reaching peace would mean stopping Opposite of Peace journalism is not “war journalism”, it’sgood journalism.Using Objjectivity: to get a version of the truth. (Perfecttruth is unattainable)Peace-reporting is less objective. Peace journalism is meaningless. Unhelpful, misleading.
“Peace Journalism is when editors and reporters make choices– of what stories to cover and about how to report them – that createopportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responsesto conflict. ” – Lynch’s definition. Meaning all other of doing journalism are “warjournalism, biased in favour of war.” Loyn: opposite of peace journalism is good journalism. – Not the role of ajournalist.
– Flawed: the world would bea better place if wars were reported in a certain prescribed way, encouragingpeace makers rather than reporting warriors. – Reporters don’t only lookfor violence.- There are certainrules/framework that journalists should follow. Ie: gender stereotypes, racialorigins reporting unless relevant to story. – Peace Journalists usemethods and analysis developed by academics in conflict resolution.
– Peace studies expert JohanGaltung: “war journalists” of reporting war with no context, making war “secret”.· Loyn response: reportinghistory, why, who, how and what of war are all key parts of reporting. – Galtung: blames journalistsfor creating bad politicians. · Loyn: creating peace-makingpoliticians is not the job of a reporter. – Reporters are observers notplayers. Galtung’s wrong to think that reporters are part of what makes theconflict.
Emotions and Trauma. – Peace Journalists say thereis not enough focus on psychology. Loyn: too much coverage of ‘trauma’. Darfur crisis: pscholofy is center of mostcoverage.
– Giving equality to bothsides is more important in journalism than “objectivity” or “truth”. – Loyn agrees that we must bemore “emotionally literate” – and reports emotions better, but not throw awayestablished journalistic tools. Truth and ObjectivityBaggini.- Cannot be a ‘single truth’.- You can try and seek truthbut it is unattainable. – There are many trueaccounts, they describe true descriptions of what happened. Many versions ofthe truth. – Politicians > speak in a way which may be ‘true’,not a lie, but still misleading because it’s not the whole truth.
– Objjectivity can be a tool,Taliban: finding out what they were about, not promoting ‘non-violent responsesto conflict’. Objectivity or Attachment.- Objectivity can beredefined but not rejected. – Reporting can bepassionate, and require emotional engagement. But it’s not about how I feel.
Neutrality: Journalism of Attachment: Case studies: examples.- The world is not a nobleplace. Believing the best in people.
– War berween Iran and Iraqdid not end because of complex journalism or peace plan, but because the USshot down an Iranian airliner by accident. Iran offered cease fire because theycouldn’t fight the US aswell. Iraqaccepted. This ended a war. Bob Jobbins: Conflict resolution is something on which Ireport, not something in which I engage. Pro Peace Journalism.
Jake Lynch: – Most important stories arebeing distorted. – US president is pro war,always on TV. Gets more coverage, even when he has nothing new to say. A lot is happening in anti-war, direct actions, public meetings,proposals for governments and UN to apply democracy in Iraq. Mainstream UK media, mentioned in newspaper articles, butnot enough coverage. – Think tanks, Objectivity: a speech by a governer/president being reportedcan be reported objectively without the newspaper necessarly agreeing with it,only because of their position. Example: if a suicide bombing happens by Palestinians, orMuslim Brotherhood, and only this news is reported “objectively” regardless ofthe long years of illegal occupation and torturing of Muslim Brotherood.
– Pro Palestine, Pro Israel.Who really are the settlers? What is Peace Journalism?Peace journalism is a way in which reporting can be donethat is different to how the ,majority of mainstream media operates. ‘WarJournalism’ – Structural violence as partof the explanation for direct violence. – “Ancient hatred” of Arabsto Israelis, instead of looking at structure and context set in place. – Diversity of perspective… positiveawareness . Many reports of conflicts are like a game, victory or defeat. – A way to divery ofperspective: peace initiatives. Even if they are by a minority within theconflict .
What is peace?Palestine conflict.Two sides of peace:Israelis can see peace as Palestinians being non-violent.Palestinians see peace as justice and fairness, ending occupation, solutions,returning, freedom of movement. Peace, . Peace journalism can be understood as afurther adaptation, so War Journalism is • Violence/war-orientated ?• Propaganda-orientated ?• Elite-orientated ?• Victory-orientated ? And peace journalism itself is therefore:• Peace/conflict-orientated ?• Truth-orientated ?• People-orientated ?• Solution-orientated ? who, what, where, when, why and how. Whencovering conflicts, these correspond roughly to what peace researchers call’conflict dynamics’. According to one of them, Diana Francis, any statement ofthe dynamics of a conflict must identify “its history, recent causes and internalcom- position – the different parties, the nature of their involvement, theirperspectives, positions and motivations, and the dif- ferent relationshipsbetween them in terms of power, allegiance and interest” (Francis, 2002, p 28).
Another prominent peace researcher, John PaulLederach, has commented: “I have not experienced anysituation of conflict, no matter how protracted or severe, from Central Americato the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, where there have not been people whohad a vision for peace, emerging often from their own experience of pain. Fartoo often, however, these same people are overlooked and disempowered eitherbecause they do not represent ‘official’ power, whether on the side ofgovernment or the various militias, or because they are written off as biasedand too personally affected by the conflict” (1997: 94). Despite what Loyn says,they are often overlooked by journalists, too, because they do not representofficial sources. Media activism It means that peace journalism is possible,and realistic, here and now, for professional journalists, and it can becomethe focus of media activism. – Power, pressure onjournalists War Journalism: Divides the world intogood and evil.
Focus on militaryleaders.Tug of war, who will win.Victory oriented.
Elite oriented. Peace Journalism:Started with an empiricalstudy, in Oslo… what is the criteria that an “event” has to have in order tobecome “news”? There are a lot of things happening in the world today, manywars and conflicts, but not everything can or is reported. There are fourcriteria:Firstly “Events” incountries that are more developed, secondly about the upper class, thirdlyabout actors not processes and structures, and fourthly an event that isnegative. Seek the causes ofconflict. What is the conflict about? And where is the problem to be found?”Looking at good and badin all parties.”People from grassroots ofconflict.Solution oriented.Truth.
Not relativetruth, but talking about what actually happened on the ground, and answering thequestions of Who? What? Where? How? Why? When reporting. Examples:The struggle for context.911: Newsweekpublication, “Why they hate us” with a picture of a Muslim. Richard Perke: “We needto decontextualize terror… any attempt to discuss the roots of terrorism is anattempt to justify it.
It is simply needs to be fought and destroyed.” In a nutshell, is theideology of the ‘war on terrorism.’ Framing: “To frame is to selectsome aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in acommunicating text in such a way as to promote a particular problem,definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatmentrecommendation” Johan Gultang. “What yousay is rather interesting, but what is more interesting is what you do not say”.
– reporting. How can journalistsreport wars and conflicts around the world without playing a role in violenceand being an invitation to hatred. References: ReportingConflict: New Directions in Peace Journalism – Many professionalsdebated the role of journalism in creating peace in the world. · Peace Journalism can play arol”War is” (quote) British Philosopher, Arnold Thoembi, in ourmodern days, wars seem like they are a fuel for reporters. Newspapers and TVsaround the world are filled with images of blood, killings, and destructedcities. Viewers today, spend a big amount of their time watching and learningabout too many violent acts. The psychology of the viewer and the psychology of the mediaoutlets portray, the majority of the times, the negative news, throughouthistory.
What controls news rooms is news that is a “hot topic”, or interesting,or more entertaining to the viewers. Just like watching a football match, theconcept of having two teams playing against each other, one team will win andone will lose. The same concept is being used in media reporting today, and iswhat is understood as ‘War Journalism’ according to ‘Peace Journalists’. In reportingconflicts, war journalists see the conflict as though it is a competition, oneside against the other, making it “more appealing” to the viewers, without consideringwhat the consequences of such reporting could be. This “us” vs “them” mentalityonly focuses on what the negatives are. “Us” being “the truth” and “them” beingthe false news, and the enemy. ‘Peace Journalism’s core is to change this kind of rhetoric.
It is more people oriented; focusing more on the context of the conflict, whatcaused it, and seeking the “truth” behind it. Peace journalism also seekssolutions to these conflicts, not necessarily directly planning out the processof fixing the conflict but providing a push towards a direction of reachingpeace unlike ‘war journalism’ where the direction it takes is • Peace/conflict-orientated ?• Truth-orientated ?• People-orientated ?• Solution-orientated ? “War Journalism” The difference between Western media and Middle Easternmedia, media in the Middle East might be more of a cause of violence and biasedforms of reporting, due to many factors including the contexts of these wartorn countries and lack of freedom of press and speech. By the end of World War two, there was a lot of European citiesthat were destructed, communities that were torn apart, economic problems,psychological issues, with the rise of the use the television in the 1950s. Itstarted becoming a debate that it journalists should have a positive social responsibilityin covering conflicts rather than being part of the conflict itself. Galtung and Jake Lynch, Peace Journalism focuses more on theconflict itself and its structures and contexts, through using the right wording,framing the conflicts, not only who “wins” and who “loses”, or who “dies” andwho “lives” in the conflict like it’s a sort of video game, but more aboutputting emphasis on giving showing different voices. By giving different voicesand putting more focus on those seeking different solutions, and proposingdifferent new solutions to conflicts. Peace Journalism is a fairly new concept, and specificallyin the Arab world, it is not very commonly practiced. Even in the West,although courses and workshops in ‘Peace Journalism’ are taught, the majorityof the news reported is not.
“Peace Journalism” or “Ethical Journalism”, one in the same,needs to also show the reality of what is going on in the ground and also bereliable and ethical. Peace Journalism is against showing imagery of blood, ornormalizing death. The Middle East today is a hub of conflicts, from uprisingsand ‘revolutions’ in Egypt, Tunisia, to years of the Palestinian-Israeliconflict, as well as the long running internal Syrian conflict and much more. Becauseof all the ongoing conflicts in the region, it is a misconception that forreality to be reported reliably, there is no room for peace. It is unfortunatethat the Arab world today does experience many wars and conflicts that make ita complex area of journalistic reporting, and causes many journalists and mediaoutlets become part of the actual struggle therefore making the real role ofjournalism in favour of the political agendas and gains. Journalism doesn’t necessarily mean the ability to reportreality as it is but it also has the ability to cause change. This authority isa double-edged sword. It can cause both positive and negative impacts.
Journalism depicts the audience’s points of view, it can decide how peoplethink, and how they perceive others. Lebanon: May 7th, 2008: It’s not to say these events are trivial, but this exaggerationputs people on edge, causes people to hate each other, causes people to notlive in peace, which according to those in favour of “peace journalism” shouldnot be the role of a journalist. Peace Journalism centres upon analysing the conflict, andtransforming it.
It shows the common grounds between two conflicting parties. It is not a reporter’s direct duty to present solutions, buta reporter can certainly pave the way toward finding a solution by creating thefoundation. War journalism, however, is concerned with who won, who lost, whowas the victor, who is strong, and who is weak. Example: Lebanese mainstream media In efforts to start spreading the idea of ‘Peace Journalism’in Lebanon, Lebanese Journalist, Vanessa Bassil, decided to start changing thenarrative and put ‘peace journalism’ into practice herself. Lebanese mainstreamwar journalism focuses on sectarian divisions in Lebanon in a “us” against “them”way, depending on which media outlet it is, and which sect is dominant.Vanessa, decided to look into, “Youth Transcend Religion”, which is aninitiative which united 20 young Lebanese women and men from different sectsand religions. The group stayed together for 10 days. When she told her chiefeditor that she would like to report this event and shed more light on thisinitiative, he didn’t believe her that this initiative took place in Lebanonand was waiting for her to document that this group did not manage to get alongtogether.
This is just a sheer example that as a result of ‘War Journalism’s’ successfulconstant portrayal and conflict between different medias in Lebanon and howeach sect chooses to portray itself and the ‘others’ and how their wordings shapetheir internal conflicts, is what shapes the public’s view and understanding.This is why she felt the need to cover more stories like this initiative andshow how some groups are building bridges. The mere action of just reportingevents like that in a different kind of way than mainstream media in itself ispart of a change. David Loyn pointed out in his article, that a reporter’s jobis not to seek changes or solutions to conflicts, but is only to ‘objectively’report what happens on the ground as it is. However, a reporter can certainlypave the way towards finding a solution by creating the foundation. Differentmethods of reporting events, those of ‘peace journalism’ and what we choose togive coverage to, is in fact a foundation, and a responsibility.
· Discuss how David Loyn seesPeace Journalism. · “War journalism” · What is truth? Relative. · Egypt – Muslim brotherhood.· Lebanon· Palestine/Israel Framing:
