JAKE LYNCH SPEAKS ON SYDNEY RADIO

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 3 Apr 2009

TMS Editor

On April 3 the Sydney radio station, 2SER, broadcast an eight-minute interview with Jake Lynch to mark the launch of his new book, Debates in Peace Journalism, published by Sydney University Press and TRANSCEND University Press.

The show is called The Fourth Estate, the interviewer’s name is Shevonne Hunt, and you can listen to it here (Podcast). The interview with Jake Lynch is in the edition dated April 3 and begins at 14m. 12s. 

Excerpts:

Journalism produces patterns of coverage which leave some aspects of conflict to drop off the edge of the news. In particular, backgrounds and contexts are often missing. For example, in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, we typically see a series of events – big bangs – with no account of process leading up to them.

It happens that way because journalism is governed by conventions, which have emerged out of the economic and political interests of the news industry. Both public broadcasters – sustained by taxes – and commercial media – hungry for readers or ratings – have readymade incentives to devise ways to present the news as all things to all people, which are not going to ‘put off’ people of any political view or none. That often manifests itself as an aversion to offending or taking serious or sustained issue with the powerful, so the range of views and perspectives included is often such as to serve powerful interests.  

The operation of these conventions leads to the prevalence, in reports of conflict, of the ‘who, what, where and when’ of a story – a bomb going off, say. Addressing the ‘how’ and especially the ‘why’ is automatically more controversial, presaging political trouble or alienating potential readers. Over time, this produces patterns of omission and distortion in the coverage. Important bits get left out, or are scarcely raised.

In today’s competitive world, editors cannot survive without realising that there are many ways to sell a story, however. In my own journalistic career, I found that my peace journalism ideas were saleable, to editors at Sky News and the BBC, because they provided something novel, especially by counteracting the effect of journalistic conventions in such a way as to fulfil stated obligations on public service broadcasters to cover a range of perspectives, or equip audiences with sufficient understanding to form their own views.

In some of my reporting for the BBC, I spoke to a so-called terrorist group in the Philippines. This didn’t mean I approved of their violent methods, but it was important to find out – from them – why they engaged in them. This was the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, just after the country’s president, Gloria Arroyo, had declared all out war on them.

The NPA talked about grievances that arise out of everyday life, and the way the economy is organised, for instance. There are countless hectares of the Philippines given over to fruit plantations, the country’s fisheries are plentiful, but these foodstuffs all go for export. Meanwhile, in rural areas, food security is a real issue for many people – they don’t know where the next meal is coming from, sometimes. That strikes many as a profound injustice, not that all of them, by any means, take a violent course. They resort to force when they see no other opportunity to do something about it.

Since then, I’ve carried out research on how Philippines and international media reported the declaration of all-out war on the NPA, and found that the country’s own media, especially the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the biggest newspaper by circulation, did quite a bit of peace journalism. The PDI has its own special position in a mediascape with a rich radical history. It was formed in 1985 with the express purpose of helping to bring down the then military dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, which indeed it did. It drew attention to the massive electoral fraud Marcos was trying to perpetrate, and became a rallying point for news about the people protests which eventually toppled his regime.

On this occasion, the PDI reported the declaration of all-out war by drawing due attention to backgrounds and contexts, by opening its opinion columns to calls for non-violent ways to deal with some of the problems and by illuminating some of the hidden political connections, including the pressure on the Philippines government to apply the approach of the Bush Administration’s so-called “war on terrorism” to a domestic insurgency. In all these ways, it afforded plentiful vantage points from which to inspect the government’s claims on the outside.

Across the Pacific region, notably in Fiji at present, the authorities are attempting to suppress free media. There needs to be much more concern expressed by foreign affairs departments of governments over this, but there is also a challenge and opportunity to step up media development initiatives to help journalists to get the news out, if only in the international arena, beyond the jurisdiction of repressive governments.

Interesting recent development in coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, in reports of Israel’s assault on Gaza – both new media and old media alike have been dwelling much more on international law issues than in comparable recent episodes, partly because this was coming to journalists from an unprecedented range of senior sources, even including “the most supine UN Secretary-General of recent times, Ban-Ki Moon”.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 3 Apr 2009.

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