The Role of the Media in Reporting Conflicts
This policy brief, by Usha Sandar Harris, was prepared in conjunction with a symposium held April 9, 2004 in Sydney, Australia, to discuss how far economic concerns are implicated in internal strife within the countries of the region, and what sorts of strategies might offer promise for bringing about peaceful resolution of these problems. As well as a focus on economic issues, an important theme running through the symposium was the role of the media in reporting on conflict and in playing a constructive role in processes of conflict resolution.
It is available as a PDF.
Background
New communications technologies such as mobile/video phones and laptop computers are allowing journalists to gather and disseminate information with ease from many parts of the world. The digitization of the news industry, which has led to a compression of time and space, means we see news images of demonstrations, riots or coups within minutes of these occurring in the streets of Jakarta, Suva, or Port Moresby. These images not only inform global audiences, but may instigate further campaigns of violence at home. Chin Saik Yoon cites an example of this in India when the BBC World Television News Service relayed, almost instantly, footage of violent clashes during an attack on a Hindu shrine by Muslim fundamentalists. The horrific scenes were seen by a large number of Indians and triggered widespread clashes around the country. As a result, the media's reporting of a conflict became central to the unfolding of the conflict itself. While technology has reduced the tyranny of distance, the commercial realities of news gathering have also affected the reporting of conflicts. The higher cost of news gathering in remote regions, coupled with the geopolitical and economic priorities of the West, mean that conflicts occurring at close proximity to the metropolitan centers receive coverage at the expense of those occurring further away in less developed regions of the world. A study of conflict reporting in the world's major news outlets in 2000 shows that the Israel Palestine conflict was by far the most covered — five times greater than the next most covered conflict. Virgil Hawkins, the researcher who conducted the study, notes: ‘By contrast, conflict in Africa, which has been, in the post-Cold-War world, responsible for up to 90 percent of the world's total war dead, suffered an almost complete media blackout. Coverage of the massive war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which caused in excess of one million deaths in the year 2000, was almost insignificant.’
With the international news agenda controlled by the world's major media giants, it has become crucial to develop and strengthen media at the local level to maintain diversity of opinion. As media in many developing nations, such as Indonesia, move away from state control towards private enterprise, it is essential for local media to find their own voice and professional codes. A well developed media system with professionally trained journalists usually benefits both global and local audiences and provides a vital link to the outside world during conflict situations. For example, the civilian coup d`etat that occurred in Fiji on 19 May 2000 brought world-wide attention to a small web publisher, Fijilive.com, which provided the only communication link out of Suva during the critical first 48 hours of this crisis. The Fijilive publisher, Yashwant Gaunder, a journalist by profession instantly recognized the power of the Internet in maintaining the global communication flow. In an amazing example of reverse news flow, the world's news media took direct feeds from Fijilive.com to inform international audiences about the events unraveling in Fiji's Parliamentary compounds. Gaunder himself was surprised by the interest his website generated worldwide.