Reporting Conflicts Need for a New Journalistic Paradigm

The twentieth century has been characterised by violent conflicts all across the globe. From the two World Wars to conflicts in Africa, former Yugoslavia, the Middle- East and South Asia, the twentieth century has witnessed the death of more than 110 million people. Many advocates of conflict prevention are convinced that the media can play a critical role in defusing tensions and forging peace. Media's portrayal of a conflict has a bearing on the conflict itself. Therefore, the traditional paradigm of reporting has to be re-assessed and re-looked in the context of reporting conflicts where mere answering the classical 5Ws and 1H have been found to be inadequate, thereby subjecting media's 'fourth estate' role to extensive critique. Dealing with issues of objectivity and ethics, a journalist reporting conflict often finds himself at the crossroads in the face of increasing censorship, propaganda, questionable source credibility, his own ideological stance and finally the risk of physical harm. This paper attempts to identify the range of constraints-both organizational and ideological, which prevent the media from reporting conflict in a truly critical and independent way. This is underscored with the help of three case studies highlighting the role of media in the conflicts of Northern Ireland, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. This paper also investigates why the news media's pre-occupation with reporting conflict is limited to focusing attention on conflict-driven events rather than on the processes that lead to the conflict. The paper then goes on to examine what role can media play in preventing escalation of violence as well as in facilitating post-conflict peace-building and reconciliation.